Stranded
by Ranekaera
Summary: The Irken counsel want Zim back on Irk for a trial over his wrongdoings, but Zim won't go. His mission is too important. So what does he do? He clings to a human and insists he be stranded rather than dragged home and killed! possible OCR PLEASE REVIEW!
1. Flip for it

Hey, this is my first invader zim story and will the rest of the fuckbags who commented on my late JTHM attempt, please stay the hell away from this, I know a bit more about zim than Nny at any rate.

THIS STORY IS NOT CANON so if you are hopelessy addicted to canon, please redirect your browser and go to another fic. This is AU and has an OC (MINE) but everything else belongs to Jhonen Vasquez (he rocks) and Nickelodeon (DAMN THEM)

You hear that? NO MINE!

I get my complete invasion set in a couple days... SQUEEEE I can't wait! There will be no minimoose or rubber piggy in this for now, because I never saw those episodes and I want to do this justice. PLEASE review.

remeber that, although I do want to do this justice and let Zim and other characters keep their dignity, everything won;t be perfect, so a reminder to you all that this is FICTION and this is MY STORY I'm writing and... um... I like pizza.

LONG LIVE ZIM!

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Almighty Tallest Red and Purple sat back in their comfy chairs in their comfy control room, watching the annoyingly small Zim "report" to them. Why they had never severed his ship's communication contact with the Irken home world was beyond him, as they had to listen to him rant every now and again.

He was babbling on about something called "snow" when Almighty Tallest Purple held a hand up.

"Mm, yeah, that's great, look, Zim, the Counsel wants to take you to trial for.. y'know, almost destroying Irk and stuff," he said nonchalantly.

On screen, Zim's large, demented red eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Trial? I have no time for a trial, I'm trying to concquer this pathetic planet and its meaty inhabitants! Tell the counsel to wait!" he demanded.

Red pushed a button that brought up a second screen behind them with a fourth Irken face on it, the face of one of the counsel on Irk. He looked pissed.

"Zim, you have been summoned here for a trial over your very life! Do you or do you not want to come back to Irk for it?!"

"NOT!!"

And with that, Invader Zim severed all communications. Red was actually thankful he had. That boy's voice really grated his nerves.

But it was bothersome. Now someone would have to go to this place called Earth and get Zim by force. On the down side, it might mean one of them would have to do it, since Zim rarely listened to anyone at all, much less a common Irk. On the plus side, they could sample all that earth food that GIR constantly went on about!

Purple seemed to be reading his mind, although this wasn't physically possible. The Irken race was not a telepathic one. Unfortunately.

"I don't want to go," said the counsel member on screen, looking shifty.

Red looked at Purple. Purple looked at Red.

"Flip for it?"

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PLEASE REVIEW!! Like I said, not perfect, and it will get better, just review! No flames please! Just suggestions 


	2. summary bandaid

Hey, chapters two and three are going to be short and sweet, they used to be onger,but somehow, my chaper got all fucked up, so here it is. it'll just be a sumary

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Since there was no heads or tails on an Irken monie, they both got to go to Earth.

They flew down in their big spaceship, went to Zim's house and, long story short, dragged him out kicking and screaming. He grabbed hold of a human and insisted he be stranded.

"She can be my jailer! I don't wanna go t trial! Those are for criminals! ZIM is no CRIMINAL!" he screamed. A crowd had gathered around the ship in the middle of the street.

Red and Purple looked at one another.


	3. jailed, baseless and all he has is GIR

I finally got my complete invasion set and I tremble in the light of it's sheer AWESOMENESS!! My family has been giving me wierd looks because I can't stop singing, "bow down... bow down... before the power of santa... or be crushed... be crushed... byyy his jolly boots of doom..."

hahahahah I stayed inside all day yesterday and this morning, watching the whole thing, so my head is still sorting out zim... things. PIZZA !!

okay, please review!!

I'm currently planning a seconf zim fic, this one definitely AU with an OC of my own

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"So, ZIM," said Tallest Red. He put an emphasis on the name, as if it were physically difficult to say.

Zim looked so pathetically eager and sad as to almost appear... cute. The thought sent a shiver down his spine. The first one to think Zim "cute" would be crushed beneath... oh he didn't know, a giant, people-eating cyborg or something insane like that.

He studied the human the tiny Irken had decided to cling to. It appeared to be female... or one of the two genders, anyway. Dark hair. Green eyes, surrounded by white. They were creepy, like they stared into his very soul... he shivered again.

Snacks or no snacks, he wwanted very much to leave this place. The aliens were creepy.

"You shall be stranded here for eternity, and stuff... we'll take your base and leave you that... THING, Gir,... and that human can be your jailer. We'll erase everyone's memory when we go. Here. If you go too far away from her, you'll blow up. You keep this," said Red. He handed a bracelet to Zim that stuck on his wrist and could not be shaken off and he handed a small, palm sized remote to the human, who took it.

"Push that button if he annoys you as much as he does us. Byyyeee!"

Red shoved Purple towards the ship and they both climbed back on and shut the door. As promised, the bottom half of the ship gave a flash and the humans below began to drool. Sad. They were so tall, at least as tall as either of them, but so... not.. smart.

They teleported the majority of Zim's base, leaving only his Voot runner and that little voice changing thingy he used, and they were off.

What a backwards planet.

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She didn't know what to make of it. Aliens?

She didn't have long to think beause once the ship began to hover, there was a bright flash and her mind was wiped blissfully blank. She realised someone was clinging to her lower leg as if their life depended on it.

She looked down and saw a small child-sized... thing. It wasn't human, although it had a human appearance. Its eyes were large and entirely red and its skin was a light shade of green. Mechanical spider legs protruded from its back.

She stood there, not wanting to freak out. She knew it was an alien!

The alien released her once the others started to wwander away, shielding his eyes from view as if blinded by the sun off the snow and once the coast was clear, he looked up at her for the first time.

She was a lot older than the Dib monkey but shorter than the rest of the human filthies he ran across. Dark brown shoulder length hair and bright green eyes, she was dressed entirely in black. He supposed another human might consider her attractive, but all he saw was another filthy earth pig.

"Okay, first we need somewhere to hide my Voot runner. Gir? Any ideas?" he asked. He didn't really expect a good answer. The stupid little robot never knew when to give a good answer.

As predicted, the little robot tilted his head to the side and drooled nonchalantly.

"I dunno."

Zim put a hand to his forehead and closed his eyes. He would need to come up with a genius plan of his own. He hadn't expected the human to become a jailer. Her memory had been erased, too. Great. Just great. Now he would have to listen to her every word and do whatever she said or the devide that had been put on his wrist would make his insides... do explodey things. His squeedily spooch tightened at the very thoughts. Exploding hurt.

He couldn't cloak the Voot runner without the aid of his base, which was now gone. Stupid idea, he reprimanded himself again. All that remained was his voice changing module and his ship. No robot gnomes. No stupid green house. No fence. No anything. There was just an empty lot.

No matter. He didn't need a base and fancy technology to take over Earth! He could do it on his own!

He set the Voot on hover, so it hovered inches off the ground by a remote control and made it follow him down the street. With any luck, no one would notice. They never noticed anything else, he supposed, so why not?

"As you may have noticed, human worm, I am not human," he muttered. He didn't see the point in lying to his jailer, human or not. Jailer was jailer and as long as the bracelet was stuck on his wrist, flashing inconspicuously, he could not get it off. The delicate bones of his wrist were too large for it to be slipped off. The only way to get it off was for one of the Tallest to push a button on their ship.

"I noticed," she said. Her voice was soft and quiet, but not the high, squeally kind of voice he had learned to expect from human females. It was a good thing, too- he would never be able to stand living here with a human jailer who had an annoying voice.

Gir pulled on his dog suit, which by some miraculous fortune of chance, had been left behind, stuck in a bush he had been playing in. He followed them down the street. Zim realised he had no idea where they were going so he stopped and waited for the human to catch up. She caught up in no time, with her longer legs and bigger feet... she was only a few inches taller than he was, but she still walked in loping strides. It was... wierd.

She stuck the little remote control for the bracelet into her pocket and led the way, not letting him out of her sight, he noticed. She was good at this jailing thing. He would have to be careful he didn't explode. He remembered when he had been taken back to foodcourtia while in Skool that day... and the bio scan over the door... pain!! No, exploding was not fun. He would have to be very careful.

She led them all to another cul de sac, to another house on the end that looked almost as different. It had an air of neglect and looked like it was falling apart. The grass was unkempt and there were no lawn ornaments out front. No defences? No perimeters? Not even a lowly guard dog!

It was a good thing he had his Voot runner... and Gir.

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I dunno if I'ma continue this... I'll think on it, cause seriously, no one's reviewing!!


	4. One condition

Okay, you don't get to learn the name of Zim's jailer until I can think of a suitable name, hopefully with help from the slurpie monster, THE ONLY ONE THUS FAR TO REVIEW!,... and I thank her from the bottom of my normal human worm babies heart. heeheehee.

Anyway, as you will soon be able to tell, Zim cares nothing for his jailer. This probably won't have any fluff, but I can assure you, Zim does learn some compassion.

Obviously, the girl's house has your stereotypical "haunted house" appearance. It might come into play later.

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The inside of the house was as different from his beloved base as was possible. There was no green monkey picture or secret base entrance or large, flat screen television. Instead there was dark walls, old pictures, ugly furniture and a large fireplace in one corner. It was an old building.

It smelled... musty. Then the human female sprayed something and it began to smell pleasant... sort of flowery. They didn't have flowers on Irk.

Nor did they have humans, thankfully. Perhaps once this place of FILTH was taken over by ZIM, they could transport select humans to Irk to act as human slaves. The very thought gave him a thrill and suddenly, he wanted nothing more than to be back inside his underground base with all his technological... techy thingies.

"You don't happen to have a secret, underground lab, do you?" he asked. It was worth a try, asking.

The girl looked at him wierd before sitting down in a chair and pulling a notebook towards her. Zim hurried and followed her, lest she get too far away. He didn't want his squeedily spooch exploding or anything. He again glanced towards the bracelet round his wrist and frowned; he wondered vaguely if his self destruct gauntlet would still work. He tried bringing it out. It wouldn't. Hmm... the bracelet chaining him to the human must inhibit it somehow...

"What's your name?" asked the girl, not looking at him. She appeared to be drawing.

"Idiotic human filthy! How can you not know of the wonderful ZIIM!" he burst out. The girl raised an eyebrow and glanced at him, skeptical.

"My name is Zim," he repeated, softer this time. He took a closer lok at the rug and noticed it was decorated with intricately woven knots.

"Celtic knots. From Ireland. My mother was from there," she said, again, not looking at him.

"Aren't you at all bothered? I mean, I'm not human and you just witnissed an alien invasion of sorts," he asked. Maybe this human was stupid.

"I know you're not human. And I don't remember any alien invasion. All I remember is walking through the street, looking down and seeing you attached to my leg," she replied.

"Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!! I like knots!" squealed GIR from behind them. Zim had almost forgotten about the annoying little robot. They both looked. GIR was rolling around on the celtic knotted rug, grinning and laughing like the little malfunctioning moron he was. (A/N: The audio commentary from the complete invasion dvd has it right-- america loves GIR!)

Zim sat down on the carpet beside his idiotic SIR unit and stared at the carpet between his feet. What to do, what to do. The Tallest had gone, taking almost everything he had with them. He was stranded on earth with a filthy human as his jailer, something he hadn't exactly intended, but it had happened. She had no super technology what so ever. So what to do?

He was rather good at building things out of nothing... maybe... this human could take him to a nearby electronics store and buy him stuff so he could make stuff to do... stuff. Yes. It was as good a plan as any.

"Do you know what being my jailer means?" he asked. This human wasn't taking this like he thought she would. He was used to the DIB monkey making a big deal out of everything and lording his power all over the place. This girl was just the opposite. She was... nonchalant. Did she even care that she was basically the ruler of an alien life form??

"Not really. I know you can explode," she said, holding up the little remote the almighty tallest had given to her.

"I am an elite invader from the planet Irk. My mission here is- WAS simple. I said was!! As in it is no longer my mission. But when it WAS my mission, My plan was to take over the humans and conquer the planet for my tallest. They named you my jailer. That means I can't go anywhere without you, so DON'T ANNOY ME!" he explained. It was more than she could have hoped to get from him and more than he had cared to explain at all.

She pushed a little purple button and he felt a tiny eletric shock travel from the bracelet and into his body, making his antennae stand up on end and his teeth clench together. It didn't hurt, exactly, but it was mildly unpleasant.

"AAAAHHHHHH!! STOP THAT! Not again!! You hear meee?!" he yelled. Hopefully, she would see the fury in his eyes and be afraid... be very afraid.

However, she just looked over, looked directly into his eyes, raised an eyebrow and went back to her notebook.

"This tv doesn't work! I wanna watch the angry monkey show!" complained GIR. Zim looked and saw that there was, indeed a tv, neither as large or as technologically advanced as his own was. He got up and inspected the back of it. The fuse was blown. It was child's play to fix. He went about fixing it. At least with tv, there would be something to do.

Without telling the human, he decided to replace a few parts with things he happened to have in his pocket. It would certainly make it easier on the eyeballs to watch.

"Why are you fixing it?" asked GIR.

"I'm fixing it so you'll shut up," he lied. Actually, there was that, and he was bored.

"Oh. Okiedokie!" GIR sat back and watched him work, holding his feet and rocking back and forth, humming to himself.

"You can fix it all you want. The volume doesn't work right," said the human from behind him.

"It will now. Hey, um... I kinda want to build... stuff. Anyplace around here where I can find... stuff... to build with?" he asked, trying to sound as if it wasn;'t important. He didn't think the human could do much to hurt him, but she did have that infernal remote control with her. Best to take no chances until he was more sure of her intelligence and intentions.

"Somewhere," she said, still not looking at him. Zim had been expecting her to ask a lot of questions about his species. So far, she only seemed interested in GIR. She was watching him, smiling wistfully.

"Who wants a cupcake?" GIR announced. As he spoke, the top of his head opened and a cupcake popped out. No one said anything. He ate it himself.

"When can we go to the store?" he asked impatiently. He finished with the tv and turned it on. She had what the humans called cable, so GIR could occupy himself with the monkey show... thing.

"Later," she said.

He wanted to rip that damn notebook from her hands and shred it!!

"Why won't you... do something?! Ask questions, pay attention! Anything but ignore me! Do not ignore Invader Zim!!" he demanded.

She set the notebook aside and leaned forward, staring at him. She cocked her head and frowned.

"Alright. Since you invited me. You told me you were here to conquer the earth," she said.

"Yess!!" Zim agreed, thoughts of conquering humans and gaining praise from the tallest filling his mind.

There was silence, save for GIR's mindless humming.

"You don't plan on staying stranded, do you?"

Zim did a double take, astonished. How... how did she know??

"You... you haven't been talking to the Dib human, have you?" he demanded.

"I don't know any person named Dib."

Zim was silent again. So... she had caught on to his plan almost immediately. No way was he going to keep true to his story and simply stay stranded for the rest of his long, long life. No way.

Would she stop him in his plans for world conquest? Or would she help him? Only one way to find out.

"No. I don't. What are you going to do about it?" he taunted her.

She stared off into the distance for a few moments.

"I won't tell. As if I could. I'll help you. On one condition," she said. She was quite serious.

"Help me? HA!" Humans help him?? Never!

"Maybe it's worth hearing what she has to say, master," said GIR in a rare display of obedience.

"Oh, very well! What??"

"I'll help you on one condition. Wherever you escape to, you take me with you."

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I WANT GIR SLIPPERS!! Does anyone know where I can still get Invader Zim merchandise? I tried amazon, but no go :( review and tell me!

On another note, I now know where I think I wanna take this story. I have to go! I wanna make lemon squares!! 


	5. Crap shack

Okay, many thanks again to slurpee monster (I like cherry best) who gave me a name for my OC. I guess I should admit, I don't really have a personality for her yet... I didn't want to self insert too much, cause I have a habit of that, but meh... I guess she'll turn out to be a bit like me anyway, so beware

The title of this chapter is Crap shack, in place of Radio shack (don't sue me, I'm funny) cause that's what my friends in high school and I all used to call it after my friend Nick bought a converter and it exploded. XD

sorry about the shortness of chapters, but I can only really type at night and certain people hate my typing noises, so I can't really do much about that...

please review!!

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"Come on! Come ooooooon," Zim pleaded. The human was going too slow! Too slow!!

"I'm coming!" she responded. She was attempting to pull GIR out of a nearby bush. He was squealing his circuits off about a squirrel. The human girl gave GIR a lollipop and he shut up, content at once. To make sure they all stayed together, it seemed, she bent and scooped the little robot into her arms. Actually, GIR was about the size of a small human child, of perhaps 5 or 6 years of age, while he could stare into her eyes by looking up exactly 3 inches.

She caught up, GIR maiking sick sucking noises on the lollipop.

"Why do we have to walk? Don't you have one of those car... thingies?" he complained.

"Nope. My sister asks me the same thing every day. Still not," she said.

Zim was annoyed, but said nothing. He had no choice.

For the moment anyway, he thought, grinning to himself.

They were approaching downtown and he could make out the store she told him about, a place called Crap Shack. Looking into the window, he could see stuff... stuff he could gut and splice and make STUFF out of!

He ran ahead, eager to get inside, where he could wander the store and its earthenoid stuff without chance of exploding. His radius was about ten feet. He could walk ten feet away from the human, who had yet to give him her name. Ten feet. Any farther, he would explode. He cringed inwardly, his squeedly spooch tightening slightly. Explodey. Not nice.

They entered the store and he immediately ran to a nearby shelf. Humans and their telephones... nonetheless, each cell phone had something he might need... And over in another corner, some sort or robot toy...

Rain got the feeling Zim had his own agenda. She let him have the run of the store while GIR stayed by her side. The hood of his dog costume was down, so his robot head and cyan eyes showed. He was still enjoying his lollipop. In a store like Crap Shack, a robot was inconspicuous. Truth be told, she was beginning to like the little robot. He was cute.

Finally, when it seemed Zim was done shopping, he carried all he wanted up to the counter. She stared. Did he think she was made of money??

She approached him from behind, noticing the pack he wore on his back, for the first time. It was a light silver-gray color with three light pink spots.

The woman ringing everything up looked at Zim strangely as she did so, watching the total cost pile higher and higher. Was this kid serious? Then she noticed she slightly older looking girl behind him and thought it must be his older sister who would be paying for everything.

The humanoid finished ringing everything up and he looked at the little sign thingy above the counter. 127 earth monies... due to a few small instances, he had some earth monies (not easy to attain) and he gave the woman what he had. The human filthy behind him may be his jailer, but he wasn't going to be mean to her. WEell, not TOO mean, anwyay. As a jailer, she had him on the spot. She could punish him.

At any rate...

"GIR!! GET AWAY FROM THERE!"

He was distracted by a small commotion. GIR was in the corner of the store, breakdancing with his hood off for a small crowd of human customers.

"Awwww, lookit the little robot, he's so cute!" one human girl squealed.

"How much is this little guy? I want him!" another one shrieked. Her voice was painful in his head... high pitched and whiny... so much whining!

"NOOO!! I wanna go with master!" GIR yelled, his mechanical voice reaching a high pitch. He ran over to Zim and clutched onto his lower leg like a frightened child, tears forming in his eyes. How a robot could cry is thanks to cartoon physics, says the author.

"Awwwww!"

"Pathetic humans with your cuteness obsessions! GIR is no toy! He's mine... I mean, my uh... my robot, that I built! Like a normal human! See? I'm all... normal and stuff... yeah, built my own robot slave!" he quickly corrected himself.

GIR continued to suck his candy.

The human jailer payed for the rest of the stuff and shoved it all into a bag, which GIR jumped up and sat in. He looked like just another crazy purchase at the Crap Shack.

Zim stuck his tongue out at the annoying humans on the way out and overheard one of them say, "ew! Like, did you see his tongue? Like an earth worm! Guh ROSS!" More insane giggling.

He was pleased, however, when the same girls passed them in a car moments later and were promptly crushed when a nearby crane collapsed. (A/N: HA!)

By the time they returned to her house, Zim was getting fed up. He was stranded on earth with nothing (his own fault, he remembered with self disgust) and a human he knew nothing about, GIR and stupid human toys!

"What's your naaaame?" GIR was asking the human.

Zim hurried to catch up with them, in case he missed it. He didn't want to keep calling her human piggy... she might get mad and zap him again. He shivered.

"I never told you, did I? That was stupid. Name is Rain. I guess I was sort of in shock before... you know, having to take charge of an alien..." she said.

Zim decided not to say anything.

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This would be longer but my family... that explains it all. They suck! please review! 


	6. Meeting Tak's ship

Hey, sorry for the minor glitch... Zim should have been thinking more about what Rain said, how she wanted him to take her with him, but I totally forgot about my first attempt at giving her a personality, lol. If you noticed the flaw, congratulations, good for yyou, if not, well, I don't care.

Something I;ve noticed... in some shots, Zim has three fingers... in others, like when it suits the creators at Nick, he has four. wtf is up? Does he have three or four??

Also, this whole thing is set a little before the episode "dibship rising" because I didn't feel like describing the cess pool, so tak;s ship is still sitting in Dib's garage. deal with it.

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As Zim toyed with all the human garbage, trying to make something beneficial and decent, he thougth, for the first time, about the human's condition. She wanted to go with him, back to Irk. In return, she wouldhelp him off this miserable ball of filthy dirt. Well, he could certainly allow that... if she could come up with her own means of surviving there, eh thought evilly. He wouldn't waste his time making her a PAK or such other breathing apparatuses for life on his home planet. If she wanted to come with him, fine, but he wouldn't help her beyond that.

As the days wore on, he found the human's company more and more repulsive. She cooked a lot of food that he wasn't allergic to and he was starting to like a lot of it. Not just waffles, but GIR helped her make tacos and cupcakes, taquitos and mashed potatoes. He didn't dare touch the meat inside the tacos. It burned, and the pain... the pain!

He knew, deep inside his brain, that her company was only repugnant because she was nice to him, rather than constantly trying to expose him. Or was she only being nice to him so he would grant her wish and bring her with him when he left?

He deicided to test it. He cleared his throat once just as he was nearing completion on his second little "toy"; a subatomic laser canon small enough to stick into his PAK. The other thing he built was just something to help his Voot runner; it was a lucky thing he still had it, really. The Tallest must want him to get off this planet!

"Yes?" she asked. She was reading a book in the corner. It was an instruction manual (in Irken; GIR was helping her translate when he couldn't or didn't feel like it) on how to make a guidance chip from scratch. She would need one on Irk, since it was so much bigger than Earth. She had already confessed her poor sense of direction, so he had allowed her the use of an instruction manual he had in the storage compartment of the voot runner.

"I have been thinking and I've decided to let you come with me to Irk. But that's all the help you'll get from me, Rain," he put an emphasis on her name, as if it physically hurt him to say it. Actually, it was ironic that she share the same name as the thing that hurt him more than the touch of meats. How he hATED rain!! It was wet! And painful!

He finished the laser canon, which was small enough for him to hold, and stuck it into his PAK by pressing one of the buttons and opening it.

He walked up behind Rain to see how she was coming with the guidance chip, expecting it to be a mess, but surprisingly, it was looking about what it should. Lik a guidance chip. She had even modified it, so she could keep it in her pocket or maybe sew it under her skin. She would need help with it, no matter what.

Using his torches, he cut a small section of her flesh away, ignoring her scream of pain and GIR's shocked outrage, his eyes glowing a fierce red color. The little malfunctioning SIR unit had taken a great liking to his human jailer. He stuck the finished chip under her skin and muscle, which was all varying shades of red and uncomfortably hot, and watched as the little tentacle-like probes attached themselves beneath the muscle to her nervous system. Using the same torch, he "welded" and cauterized the wound he had made. It left nothing but a small burn scar.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR?!" she screamed at him. He jumped back in surprise and a little uncertainty; her voice was normally soft, but when she yelled, it turned into a horrifying shriek of fury.

"The chip won't work if it's in your pocket, insolent fool girl!" he shouted back. GIR was still glaring at him, but at least his eyes had returned to blue. Rain's eyes, however, had flashed a darker shade of green shot with shades of gray. Hadn't her eyes been a pale green before? Maybe human eyes could change color, he mused. No matter.

He went back to modifying his gadgets.

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He worked all through the night, so that by the time week two was over, an entire myriad of gadgets were strewn about. The entire living room was littered with wires and screws, plastic and broken metal, spitting wiring and pieces of batteries. He had needed battery acid and it had burned a hole in Rain's celtic rug.

He was no longer afraid of offending Rain. She knew her condition would be met but did not cease being nice to him and GIR. He wondered why. She had started introducing himn to human snacks and they were all incredibly addicting. His favorite by far were something called sticky buns. Not only did they not make him sick, but they tasted remarkably similar to something on Foodcourtia.

He had stopped going to that infernal human Skool.He no longer had to associate himself with children. He would forget his mission on earth.

For the time being, anyway. Until he could get more supplies and then he would return here and start anew. (A/N: Foreshadowing here!)

Within another two weeks, preparations would be done. Maybe he might even run into Tak somewhere in the void of space, but she wasn't a stupid earth pig. She could probably fix what remained of her ship and get home to Irk. He wasn't worried about her coming to kill him or anything.

Another thought occured to him. Tak's ship. The Dib monster had it! The very thought of Irken technology in the hands of an inferior pig smelly human disgusted him. He had to get it back before they left.

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For the first time in his life, he felt tired. He had sent Rain on her first mission to help him off this miserable rock. He needed Tak's ship. Who knew what the humans could do with it using reverse engineering? It couldn't be allowed.

MEANWHILE...

Rain had no trouble getting to the Membrane house. He was widely known, after all. She was even happier to see the garage wasn't part of the perimiter. It had one of those easy open double-single doors... how that made any sense grammatically speaking was still a mystery to her. Perhaps the manufacturers knew.

She wore closer fitting clothes than normal, a light weight black t shirt and smaller-than-usual black pants that allowed her moving room but didn't drag on the ground.

She approached the garage and, making sure no one was watching, she opened it.

She stared. Tak's ship was bigger than she'd thought. It had a cockpit of sorts big enough even for her to sit in, but the farther back it went, the more tapered it became, eventually ending with four long metal tentacles.

Zim had warned her that there might be cameras here. He had also warned her that Irken ships had a function that enabled personalities to be downloaded, giving the ships artificial intelligence. So Tak's personality might be on board the ship.

She looked around and spotted a camera right away. It wasn't very well hidden.

She took a knife out of her pocket and jammed it into the lens. It sputtered and sparked, then went dead. Satisfied, she retrieved her knife and turned to the ship. She was getting butterflies now. She had been slowly learning how to read Irken (being taught by GIR, and Zim when he wasn't too impatient) but still didn't know if she could fly this thing back to her house.

She climbed inside the ship and pressed a button labeled "on" in Irken. She had been forcing herself to remember everything she could. The Irken race didn't tpically speak English, after all. Zim only did it (he claimed) so she didn't keep asking her what he said.

The panel lit up and four 3D bars slid down. The ship began to hum and after a moment, it spoke. Its voice was sarcastic and feminine, but had a slight british lilt to it. She didn't sound very haoppy.

"You're not Irken. This means I have been stolen! Get out at once!"

"Um... are you Tak?" Rain asked it.

"Almost. I've been downloaded with Tak's personality. Who are you and why are you stealing me?" the ship demanded.

Rain sighed, quickly reading every label she could recognize in Irken. She was trying to keep the ship distracted while she figured out how to possibly fly the thing.

"My name is Rain, and I'm not stealing you. Okay, well I am, but the point is, you've already been stolen. I'm stealing you back because... someone is taking me to Irk and we can't leave you behind," she explained. She was extra careful not to mention Zim's name. He had told her Tak and he were hardly friends. In fact, Tak hated Zim. Something about ruining her chances of becoming an invader or something. Zim's side of the story had been heavily focused on something called cheesy sticks.

"Back to Irk? Or are you taking me back to Earth?" the ship barked angrily.

"You're already ON earth, Tak...'s ship," she said stupidly. "You fell to earth and a human is keeping you in his garage."

"Never! Fine, very WELL, take me, but be warned: When I am returned to Tak, if you're lying, she will punish you," said the ship.

"I'm not lying... well... not really, anyway. I may be omitting a name... but I am taking you back to Irk, so that much is good, right?" she shouldn't have said that.

The ship was quiet for a moment.

"I got the feeling this had something to do with Zim. Do you know how to fly me?" it asked.

"Um... hang on, I'm trying to read all this... Irken. It's been slow going, trying to learn," she muttered. What to press first? The ship was on... was there a button anywhere that said "fly"?

While she looked for one, a metal strap came out from behind her, strapping her where she sat so she couldn't move.

"I'LL take care of the flying. YOU just steer," Tak's voice commanded.

She took the controls, feeling more butterflies than ever now. There was a snapping sound, like cables being ripped from a wall and the ship started to hover. This was going to be a little like a video game... and she did know those. She pushed forward on the controls and the ship skyrocketed into the air, above the telephone poles! Her stomach dropped and she knew she must look ridiculous.

"You're a worse pilot than Zim!"

The ship leveled itself out and she began to get a better feel of the way it steered. Pretty soon, she was doing circles. After five minutes testing the controls, she decided enough was enough and it would be better to get to her house.

"I'm only letting you fly me because Tak wouldn't want me on this miserable little ball of dirt. And because you claim you'll take me back to Irk. My sensors show me that's where my owner is. But I won't allow Zim to come near me, do you understand?" the ship said.

"Yes, I do," she replied. She saw her house just ahead.

"A complete scan of my systems shows my on board computer needs a few minor repairs and I am missing my ejection unit. I can walk you through fixing these problems with the right materials. Another scan shwos you are intelligent enough to fix me at all," siad the ship. It began to power down and Rain tried her hand at landing. It went smoothly enough, she supposed. She parked it in the backyard as opposed to the front. The backyard was fenced in and facing the woods, so no one would see the ship.

"Fine by me," she said. The clear bubble surrounding the cockpit opened and she climbed out. She wasn't sure what to say to a ship with artificial intelligence.

"Thank you," she told it.

"I would say don't mention it, but you will still have to deal with the real Tak once we get back to Irk. And keep that infernal defective Irken ZIM away from me!" it warned her. It then shut itself off and powered down.

"Tak seems nice," she muttered to herself. She walked back towards the house and her alien charges.

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Please review!!


	7. Bollocks with engineering

Hey, for the moment,"Ways to annoy", "crazy little robot" and "Tak's tale" are on a semi-hiatus until I finish "Stranded" and "Accidentaly on purpose" . I'll update them when I can, but for now, just check them out, huh?

On with my story, and please... I can't stress it enough, REVIEW!! REVIEW OR THE ROBOT GETS IT! (holds a SIR unit ransom)

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"I said JEALOUS, not JELLY!"

She felt like storming off into the house and slamming the door, but she knew to do so, to go somewhere Zim could not follow, would mean death for him. Much as she was annoyed just then, she didn't want him to die.

It was two days after retrieving Tak's ship and she was hot, sweaty and irritable. She wore a thin, dirty pink tank top and a short skirt. It was very unlike her usual dress but it was all she had clean for the moment and the clothes were thin and light enough to be cool. Her hair had been swept back into a messy, careless bun-thing and fell in tendrils around her neck and there was a smudge of grease on her cheek.

She was trying to fix the ship.

Zim had been rambling about the kid Dib and how much he annoyed him and she had nonchalantly called him jealous of Dib's intellect. Zim had gone off, shouting, "this has nothing to do with Jelly!" She had snapped, her patience on the breaking point.

Try as she might to fix the problem with the ship's on board computer, and as much as Tak's artificial downloaded personality tried to direct her, she just... couldn't... figure it out.

"I help?"

She looked around (she was sitting in the cockpit on her knees) and saw GIR and managed a small smile. She liked the little robot. He was so stupid and mostly insane, but cute. Childlike and distractable. She could never help but smile when he was around, no matter how irritated she was with Zim.

"Sure, GIR. Could you pass me things?" she replied. She pointed to a toolbox and a jewelry box behind her. The tools were obvious, but she had brought her jewelry box for a different reason. There was more than jewelry in there. Small, percise tools she used for modifying jewelry, like chain links. Fixing a superior technological computer called for more than just a simple clumsy screwdriver.

"Okeedokee!" GIR hopped up into the cockpit and sat on the floor next to the tools with a small, metallic "clang".

She sighed, blowing her hair out of her face, and turned back to the piece of the computer that was "damaged" as the ship said. It was a mess of wires and metal tubing and blinking lights. If it weren't for the ship's artificial intelligence, she wouldn't have a clue what she was doing. She was good with computers, but this was ridiculous; this was closer to engineering, and she was bollocks with that.

"No, no no, for the last time, you foolish girl! If I had hands, I would fix myself!" Tak's voice said snobbishly. Her slight British accent was odd... maybe some Irkens spoke differently depending on what part of Irk they were from, like humans?

"You gots dirt on your face!" GIR informed her cheerfully. He handed her the next thing she needed, a pair of needle nose pliers and some electrical tape.

She wiped it off with the back of her forearm and kept working.

Zim watched her work with a mixture of spite and a twinge of what she called "jealousy". GIR was HIS robot slave, not hers!

That, and she was fixing the ship all wrong! Irken technology and human pliers! It was ridiculous! But Tak's ship lashed out at him whenever it felt he was getting too close, so she would have to fix it with her primitive human tools.

As for his ship and all his homemade supplies, he was almost ready. He had a new navigation system for his computer, he had every mini weapon imaginable (crammed into his PAK, where there was extra room) and all he needed was a way to get rid of her once he got to Irk. He had been thinking with his incredible mind and had come to only one conclusion; take her to an Irk and, after getting this infernal jailing bracelet off, abandon her and leave for Earth again, with a new idea for world conquest and better equipment. It was genius! As long ashe escaped notice by the Tallest, no one need ever know he had ditched his human jailer.

Although he supposed he would miss her delicious human "lemon bars". Delicious!

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On board the Massive, Tallest Red and Purple were checking up on all the Invaders. So far, everyone was coming along nicely. It wasn't easy felling a plnet to its knees alone. Next on the list was Zim. They had forgotten to cross him off as Permanently Banished.

"Should we even bother? I mean, it's not like he can get off the planet," said Red, waving his spiffy new holo-clipboard around.

"Yeah, but we forgot to repo his Voot runner," said Purple.

There was a short, awkward silence. Actually, no one had thought he would dare use the Voot to get off the planet. He was bound to the Earths surface by his bracelet, which was unremovable except by a control brain or one of them. They hadn't taken it because, well... he was stranded, so why bother? It was more to taunt him than anything, really.

"Let's check on him, just to be sure. Track the bracelet's signal or something," said Red, an uneasy feeling in his squeedly spooch.

Purple pushed a button and a three dimensional, transparent holographic image of the Earth popped up. On it was a single glowing red dot. That was Zim's bracelet.

"Zoom in on it," said Red. Purple pushed another button and the planet wasn't transparent any more. Now it was a blue-green ball with swirls of cloud white and dirt brown on it. The signal was still strong. It meant either Zim was still wearing it or he had somehow ditched it. He may be insane but he wasn't stupid.

Purple enhanced the image until they saw the place where Zim had been forced to take new residence after they took his base. It was a rather plain, broken down house with a fenced in back yard facing a lot of trees. Zim was in the back yard, as well. Red was pleased to see he was still wearing the bracelet.

"Hey! In't that the Voot runner? And... there's ANOTHER Irken ship? Where'd he get THAT?!" cried Purple, slamming two whole donuts into his mouth. Red noticed he tended to eat a LOT when he was bored or under stress.

Red took over the controls and zoomed in on the unfamiliar Irken ship... it seemed to be a heavily modified, Irken customized Spittle runner, painted red and emblazoned with the Irken military insignia. The antennae were curled rather than layed back. Whoever owned that ship must be female.

They both saw the human jailer in the cockpit and it didn't take a Vortian scientist to tell them she was attempting to fix whatever was wrong with the ship. Zim's insnae robot GIR sat beside her, handing her tools and smiling vapidly. They appeared to be talking but audio couldn't be heard.

They both looked at each other, each one cramming donuts in their mouths. They couldn't speak very well with all that food, but Red knew they were thinking the same thing.

What on EARTH was Zim planning THIS time?

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Hey, I know that last line isn't something the Irkens would turn into a figure of speech (what on earth) since they had never actually heard of planet earth until episode 1 "the nightmare begins", but I just thoguht it'd be funy...

anyway, please review!! 


	8. seating arrangemets

Hey, I'll jump right into it here!

It's been fast forwarded two days, so Everyone's ready to go!

Everyone, that is, except GIR... lol

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"Come on, come on, we haven't got all day! I have to leeeaave this horrible place!" Zim yelled maniacally.

"But... but my tacos! I can't leave them! They... they'll miss me!" GIR sniffled. Tears filled his mechanical eyes and he looked so pathetic that Rain grabbed one of said tacos off the back porch where they had been camped out all evening and stuffed it int the little robot's mouth. Taken by surprise, his eyes widened and he chewed thoughtfully.

He swallowed, smiled, his eyes upturned and opened his mouth wide. He then proceeded to hug her. His arms were like vicegrips and she couldn't get away. She was flattered, but she hadn't missed the way Zim's eyes narrowed dangerously, and just a little bit sadly when he saw GIR giving her any sort of attention.

Eventually, he let go of her and proceeded to shove the rest of the greasy meat shells into his metal mouth.

She turned away from this disgusting spectacle and examined all their hard work over the past month and a half. Two gleaming ships stood in her back yard, amidst piles of spare parts, wiring, plastic tubing and cogs. Zim's ship was more... bubbly-looking and light purple with two darker purple pods to each side and a clear dome over the cockpit.

Tak's ship, which was finally finished, was more sleek-looking and definately more intimidating than Zim's Voot cruiser. It was a dark red and purple with a strange, curly-antennae'd logo on the side. According to Zim, female Irkens had curly antennae, so perhaps it was a logo personalized by Tak herself. Who knew?

"NOW... for seating arrangements... of DOOM!"

Rand and GIR looked at him skeptically.

" "Doom" "? she repeated.

"Yes! Dooom," said Zim, looking deranged. He tapped his fingers together and the bracelet on his wrist jangled, blinking ominously in the sunlight.

"Um... oookaay. You can't stray more than 10 feet away from me... how are we going to fly out of here with two ships?" she asked.

There was silence. Even GIR was quiet.

Zim pooched his lower lip out, looking dumbfounded... or maybe just struck dumb, she thought with a smirk.

"Hrrm..." he grunted, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"YAAAAAY WE'RE DOOOOMED!" yelled GIR and he took a huge suck of a SuckMunky. Rain had no idea where he got it.

"I have it! I fly in front and you fly behind me, but not too far behind... wouldn't want me blowing up or anything, you know..." said Zim. It was clear as day to Rain that he was nervous at having his life in her controls, so to speak.

It sounded like a plan to her, at any rate.

She made sure GIR was far enough away before leaning in close to Zim and whispering in what she hoped was a good direction, since he didn't have ears. His skin looked very smooth up close.

"What do we do with GIR? I've noticed he's kind of... insane. What if he messes up your ship or something? Can we deactivate him just until we get to Irk?" she whispered.

Zim, surprisingly, saw her point of view, for once.

"GIR! Get over here! I am going to put you in sleep mode until we get to Irk! Not a sound, you hear?" GIR ran over, still clutching his suckmunky. Zim pushed on the antennae on the robot's head and his head opened up. Zim fiddled around with something inside of it and Rain leaned in for a closer look. Inside GIR's head... was almost nothing. She had seen the little guy go into defensive mode before so she knew he had a whole array of dangerous weapons... where were they? All she saw was an empty tin can with a few strange looking coins, some gadgets and wires, a gumball and a rubber piggy.

Zim pushed a hidden button somewhere and GIR's cyan eyes went dark gray. He slumped, dropped his drink and lay tumped over in the grass, looking dead.

"He'll remember everything that's happened. I just put him in shut down mode for awhile, he'll be fine," Zim assured her.

She didn't know if she liekd seeing the hyperactive, adorable robot looking so dead. True, he might mess things up for the trip, but still... she bent and scooped the little metal body off the ground and simply held him for a moment, trying to think of what to do with him.

"Well? Are you coming?"

She shook her head to clear her thoughts away and saw Zim already in the cockpit of his ship.

She hurried to Tak's ship, HER ship for the time being, and dumped GIR's lifeless body into it. She threw what she was bringing in with her, seperated into three small bags that could all be worn over the shoulder or chest, and she hopped in and started the engines.

"Hello again. I see you have Zim's SIR unit," said the on board computer.

"Yeah. Zim out him in sleep mode until we get to Irk. Don't want him causing trouble when he gets bored or starts whining for a cupcake," she replied, putting her lap belt on. In front of her, Zim's ship was rising up off the ground.

"Matching his acceleration speed now. We don't want to get too far away from him, just yet," said Tak's voice, and indeed, the ship's controls were moving on their own for the moment.

"I will relinquish control of the ship once we get out of your planet's orbit. It'll be easier for you then."

Zim's ship took off and Rain didn't get a chance to put another word in. Tak's ship acceleraetd so fast she was pushed back into her seat, her stomach leaping into her throat.

Things were going by so fast, she couldn;t move her head to look at them. Gravity was too strong, and Zim was going too ast! Nevertheless, both ships stayed within ten feet of each other. Zim must be trying very hard to avoid letting Tak's ship taste the fire from his engines.

They ascended through fluffy layers of clouds and to her left she heard a flock of birds. She couldn't help but smile. FINALLY. She was leaving Earth, going into outer space, seeing things no other human had ever seen, going places no one could say they'd ever been... it was the best moment of her life. Hands down.

"In approximately five minutes, we will leave orbit. Are you ready to take the controls? "

"Yes." she said without hesitation.

"Very well. I shall warn you if we get too far behind."

"You do that."

There was silence and at that moment, Rain was very aware that the ship in which she was sitting was much like a car on Earth. She was behind the wheel, she controlled it and if she crashed, there were no break down lanes in outer space.

Just like that, the clouds thinned and everything turned black and starry. She stared, then noticed Zim was getting too far ahead. Quickly, she thrust the controls foreward, catching up to him, and followed him. The ship, once repaired, ran much smoother than the last and only time she had flown it.

There was a low beeping noise and the on board computer flashed a message in English, more for her benefit than anyone's.

"Incoming transmissioin from Zim," said the voice.

She pushed a flashing icon and Zim's face appeared on screen, flying the controls of the ship ahead of her. He looked determined, yet vaguely sick.

"Do not stray too far behind, human, there are more lives at stake than just yours!" he scolded her.

"Like whos?" she asked, feigning innocence.

"MINE!"

She smiled and cut him off. She needed to concentrate on flying.

"You learn quickly, human." said Tak's voice again. "Your handling of the ship is much better than the last time."

"Yeah, well this time, the ship isn't broken," she joked.

Together with the for-the-moment-lifeless GIR, and no one else but Tak;s downloaded personality for company, she followed Zim through the Milky Way Galaxy.

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PLEASE REVIEW!! Next chapter up monday! 


	9. author's note

Hey, sorry, but I only just noticed the error in chapters 2-3 in this story. Rest assured, it will be fixed, but I can't do anything about it until the other computer is fixed. Even then... I might have to re-do them, because I'm not sure if the rental place will wipe the hard drive completely or not. My stuff was never backed up, which was just stupid of me, but meh...

I'm not sure how the chapters got messed up, but eventually, I will fix it. For now, try to follow along! Next chapter will be up very soon.

I'm afraid Rain isn't doing so well... Zim is gonna have to risk further exposure if he doesn't want to explode... 


	10. Pit stop at Foodcourtia

Hey, I feel like I didn't really express or describe the last chapter very well, so in this one, I'll more than make up for it! Oh, and Tak is coming up soon, and she will have forgotten all about Zim. For the moment, let's just say she's been allowed to take her little test...

For those of you who don't know who Tak is, let me explain. On the Irken military training planet, Devastis, Zim really wanted a snack from the snack machine, but he didn't feel like paying for it. So he grabbed a humongous ultra super dangerous machine robot thing and broke it down and knocked out the power to half the planet just to get it. The result was a female Invader-to-be, Tak, was locked inside her room and could not make it to her final test. She begged with the control brain to let her retake it, but the brain said she would have to wait 70 Irk years, and sent her to Planet Dirt as a janitorial drone. She escaped and tracked zim down to earth to take his mission from him and prove to the Tallest that she was worthy of being an invader.

Needless to say, (we all know Zim) her plan would have worked, if not for ZIIIIM! and she ended up floating through space in a useless ejection pod... it was left there and no one heard from her via viacom or jhonen vasquez again. (by the way, did I mention viacom and jhonen own IZ, not me? Well, they do!)

Anyway, needless to say, Tak does not like Zim. Unless you're into ZATR, which I'm not, so there! Bleaaaaah!

On with the story!

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She did not know how long it had been, but she did know that outer space was nothing like Earth. She already felt more alone than ever, without the usual blue sky and white clouds... instead everything was black, lit only by tiny stars that up close were small, burning balls of gas.

Up ahead, she could see Earth's moon and was disappointed to see that it was more gray than blue-white as it appeared back home. Oh well.

Ahead of her, Zim veered to the right to avoid its gravitational pull and she veered to keep up with him. If he didn't slow down, they were going to go too far apart!

Behind her, she heard GIR's lifeless metal body thunk against something and heard her bags slide around some. She had packed a few changed of clothes, a pair of sandals in case something happened to her boots, a LOT of earth food, including non perishable stuff like snacks, canned soup, popcorn and such.

She had also brought toothpaste, her toothbrush, deoderant, underwear, a brush, basic hygeine stuff for a trip of any sort. In her other bag were things to do, comic books of the gruesome sort, hand held video games, extra batteries, a few books, her music and a portable cd player, drawing utensils, her cell phone (although what it would be good for, out of range of any towers, was beyond her but it was better to have and not need) and most importantly, a few basic tools. Just in case.

"I estimate that we should reach Irk in one Earth year, if we speed up a little," said Tak's voice on the computer.

She almost slammed on the brakes. A YEAR?! She hadn't brought that much food! How could she drive this thing for a year straight?! She needed to sleep!!

"Can you call up Zim's ship?" she asked her.

"Of course," said Tak, sounding displeased, as usual, at any mention of the deranged Irken.

Zim's face appeareed on the screen to her left, looking bored.

"What is it?" he demanded.

"Tak's ship says we should reach Irk in a year, at this speed... Zim, I'm HUMAN... Meaning I need food and sleep on a semi-regular basis... how am I gonna fly that way?" she demanded, somewhat panicky.

Zim blinked his enormous red eyes a couple of times, appearing to focus on something in his own ship.

"There. I've made a link from my ship to yours. If you press that flashing button, Tak's ship can run on autopilot and follow mine at a safe distance. So you can... SLEEP..." he said, shivering as if sleeping, to him, were something disgraceful and lazy.

Tak's personality did not appreciate the measure Zim had taken with its controls, but she didn't say anything.

"Push the button when you need to sleep, push it again to regain control of the ship. I'll alert you if anything comes up," and with that, Zim cut the transmission.

She sighed in relief and kept following Zim's Voot cruier. After about fifteen minutes, she suddenly wished GIR were awake, if only to have someone to talk to, however insane it was.

She preoccupied herself for the time being with counting stars. Whenshe got bored of that, she began playing a game of mental connect-the-dots. When that became mind-numbing, she started reading what Irken symbols she could around Tak's ship... Oooh... apparently, there was a sort of library installed in the ship's interface... if it was all in Irken, though, she'd never be able to read it.

Up ahead, she could see what looked like a string of asteroids and loose debris... wait a minute... was that a piece of metal?

She called Zim up on the communicator and he looked strangely dodgy.

"Zim... was that a piece of metal?" she asked suspiciously. Whatever it was, there was a reason he was looking edgy.

"Um... might've been, why do you ask? I had nothing to do with the reason Mars isn't there!" he said very quickly.

Wait a minute... Mars?

She looked behind her, since they'd already passed it, and saw chunks of red-brown dirt.

"I don't want to ask, do I," she said dully.

"It was A SHIP! It's Dib's fault it blew up, not mine!" Zim insisted.

"Whatever," and she severed transmission yet again. Mars, a ship, yeah right...

Zim hailed her yet again, looking hasty.

"Oh yeah, by the way, Mercury was a ship, too," and he cut himself off.

She blinked. Oookaaay. Out of nine planets, scratch of Mars and Mercury. Now there were seven.

She sighedand decided to push the flashing blue button on the computer console. The ship went into autopilot mode and began following Zim at precisely the right speed so as not to fall behind or get too far ahead. She let go of the controls and decided to doze a little. She had a year- why the hell not?

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SOMETHING LIKE 11 MONTHS LATER...

She was going crazy... no company... no people... only a computer and Zim to talk to... Her muscles were cramped. She didn't even know if she could stand any more. She had no idea where they were now. They had passed Pluto last month and had only seen one planet since then, a pretty orange and pink swirly one Zim said was Foodcourtia. He didn't want to stop, even though she had long since run out of food and was starving to death. It was only two or three hundred feet behind them when she called up Zim on the communicator. She was getting sick of this trip. When would they get to Irk?

"Zim, I'm serious... I'm weak. It's been two weeks since I ran out of food, seriously, I need to eat something before I die," she said. She still had fluids, which was why she hadn't died already.

"UGGGH, FINE!! CURSE you and your human needs! We go to foodcourtia! But stay close to me, I don't need you getting lost... I don't wanna explode," he growled. He punched the button on his own console and did a sharp swerve, turning sharply in space, and she followed him, glad to do anything but fly straight. The muscles in her shoudler creaked at the unfamiliar movement and they were heading back towards her first foreign planet.

She gave control of the ship back to Tak's personality and rummaged around in one of her bags for the invisible air hood she'd had Zim's help in making back on Earth, so she could breathe in any environment. It was like the one he kept for himself in his PAK, but it was designed for use by a human, so she wouldn't suffocate.

The ships landed in what looked like a giant, metropolitan zoo, combination of downtown New York multiplied by seventeen and Las Vegas. Floating signs, holo-boards, space ships of every size, shape na doclor imaginable, aliens everywhere... she stared, forgetting her starving belly for a moment.

Zim got out of his ship as spry as ever, but she didn't have any life supporting systems attached to her back. After eleven months of sitting in a space ship, with minimal food and even less water, her muscles were weak and not used to standing. The moment she stood up straight again, her back protested and she had to take deep breaths before she could stand upright. She was dizzy. She had lost too much weight. She should have thought things through before leaving...

"Come on filthy pig smelly, let's get foos and then it's on to Irk!" said Zim impatiently.

She stared at himn for a moment, ignoring the curious looks from passerby and the immense ammount of noise from every other which way. The color and sights and sound were all deafening after 11 long months in the blank, silent vacuum of space.

"Look at her, you moron! She's practically dead! She needs to eat!" snapped Tak's ship. Rain nodded bleakly and looked around. Was there someplace cheap that wouldn't poison her? She didn't have a lot of money... did they exchange it at all?

She looked at Zim again and was surprised to see he looked a bit sympathetic. His eyes were upturned and he bit his lower lip slightly.

"FINE," he said flatly. He marched off and past her, taking her by surprise and grabbing her by the hand on his way by. Not to seem too sappy, it seemed, he let his grip slide so he dragged her by the wrist instead. It was all she could do to simply keep up, the muscles in her legs protesting angrily.

He slowed to a more steady walk when they neared the larger crowds.

"Zim- slow down!" she protested.

Surprisingly, he listened.

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Zim didn't slow down because he felt sorry for the human, although he had to grudgingly admit to himself that he did, sort of. She looked different than she had when they left Earth. Sort of... sicky and skinny. And her hair was all greasy and disgusting!

If she got enough food for her system to take in without puking from shock, and enough for the rest of the ride to Irk, hopefully he'd never hear another word from her.

Hmm... something that wouldn't disagree with her filthy human body chemistry... Schloogorghs was out of the question. Sizz-lorr would recognize him and they'd never get off the planet... Gackies had mostly acid foods... still no good. What did he know of Earth foods? Lots of salt and sugar and... water. He shuddered at the thought. Only Schloogorghs had any modicom of liquid in the food... it would have to be Schloogorghs. But what to do...

In a second, he got an idea. He stopped short and opened his PAK. He pulled out his human disguise on Earth, wig and contact lenses, and or good measure, his fake beard, too. He felt a weak grip on his upper arm and turned to see the girl clinging to him.

"What are you doing?" he demanded.

"Weak... sorry. But the crowd... I don't wanna get lost on this place, it's so cramped!" she complained. Even her voice was weak!

He groaned and put on his disguise.

"Stay close to me," he growled. It wasn't something he had eever imagined himself having to say.

He noticed his own picture on a hover sign next to the entrance to the place and shuddered again, remembering his awful enslavement on this planet. It was a wanted sign.

Good thing he had his disguise!

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A bit longer than I'd intended, but anyway... review!! 


	11. Sizz Lorr's sympathy

Hey, you get a doulbe update, simply because I cannot get this idea out of my freakishly twisted mind. Here ya go!

You know, I wonder what a short animation would look like if Johnny the homicidal maniac met Zim in the streets... (daydreams) Who would be crazier?

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Sizz-Lorr wasn't having a very good day. Gashloog and the rest of his help were taking care of things, true, but he was still one worker short... ZIM. Oooh, he would find that cursed ex-invader... oh how he would find him and make him pay! He was so close, to... just when he had almost had a reading on him, he moved too far away... so where was he now?

The scanner over the door dinged gently and he looked up from where he was mopping the floor. A short alien was being dragged in by another strange looking one, with green skin and pale eyes. He spoke in a deep voice most unlike Zim's.

"Please, kind sir, my, er... daughter needs food, we have come from very very far away and we ran out."

Sizz-Lorr took a good long look at the green one. Standard Irken clothing, but no visible PAK... perhaps it was just a wanna-be?

He then looked over the other one, the female and he raised a skeptical eye. The girl was a little taller than her "father" but much too thin. In fact, she looked dead on her feet! Her skin was pale, almost white.

He then noticed the bracelet around the green one's wrist and recognized it immediately. This alien had been stranded on some other planet and this sickly looking girl must be his jailer, not his daughter. If they were on the run, he should alert the Almighty Tallest...

He put his mop back down and approached the duo. He leaned in and took a good, long stare at the green skinned one, who stared defiantly back, and then at the female, whos eyes were pale like his but almond shaped and an unhealthy-looking green. Up this close, he could see her veins just beneath the surface of her skin. They were blue.

He grabbed the beard on the green one and it came right off, revealing a normal Irken neck. He then ripped the hair off, revealing antennae. The guy began to panic, and ripped his eyes out, revealing... Zim.

"Wait!"

He was about to rip Zim's head off, but was stopped by the surprisingly soft cry. Both he and Zim stared. It was the girl who'd spoken. She brushed her greasy dark hair out of her face, licked her lips and sighed.

"Don't... he's the only way... I could ever get off my home planet. He helped me. I don't think I'd like it if you kept him here or killed him," she said. Her voice was soft and very weak. She coughed and something red dribbled out of her mouth. Sizz-Lorr thought it might be blood. It wasn't green, so she wasn't Irken, and she was really too pathetic-looking to be wearing a disguise.

"Why not? Everyone on OUR planet HATES him," he growled, squeezing Zim's neck. He squealed and struggled, gasping for air.

She coughed and more blood splattered her porcelain white skin, like mud over a freshly washed ship. She looked him straight in the eye, reminding him of a wounded animal he'd seen somewhere.

"I'd be stranded, too. I have a ship, but... I don'no my way around yet," she replied.

Sizz-Lorr studied the girl a bit harder. She scratched her belly, accidentally lifting her shirt a bit, and he thought he could see bone beneath the equally pale skin. Strange an alien as she looked, there was no denying she was very sick. Even if he gave them food, she would probably die anyway. No harm, right?

He dropped Zim for the time being and went around back to the kitchen, thinking vaguely that he could poison Zim's food, then decided against it. He wasn't sure why.

He prepared a small, deep fried mooshminky and a large sack of Vort dogs and set them on the counter, a thought in his head already. He would place a tracking device in Zim's PAK when he wasn't looking and let him leave Foodcourtia. Soon, he would just be able to track him down and rip him limb from limb.

He wasn't so sure why he was taking pity on the sick alien... perhaps because she looked so pathetic.

"What planet are you from," he asked the girl.

"Different galaxy. Planet called... Earth," she managed to whisper. She was wiping blood off her face with the back of her delicate, five-fingered hand, but it wasn't doing much good.

He brought a scanner out of his own PAK and scanned the girl, both for signs of illness and to see if the food he'd prepared would even be compatible with her chemistry. He didn't want to kill her, after all. He was not that heartless. To his surprise, he saw a lot of organs inside her.

He saw them all, labeled and working. Her heart, which seemed slightly bigger than an Irken's and was set slightly lower in her chest. She had a stomach and intestines, a liver and kidneys... no squeedilyspooch. The good thing was, the food probably would not make her sick. He then scanned for whatever was making her sick and saw that with her body chemistry, she would need food, and soon. Her body... seemed to be digesting ITSELF from the inside out!

He shuddered, no longer feeling sorry for her, instead afraid she'd drop dead any moment! He gave her one of the Vort dogs and told her to eat it, and he took Zim by the antennae and dragged him out back into the kitchen.

"Gaah! Oooow! Let go of me! You're horrible, the PAAAAIN!!"

He released Zim's antennae and watched as he got to his feet, rubbing his head and wincing in pain. An Irken's antennae were extremely sensitive. He had meant to cause him pain, and he did.

He folded his arms and glared at the annoyingly tiny Irken.

"I won't ask what you're up to, ZIM, but I'm only letting you go for now because a death of ANY sort in my resteraunt would mean a lot of teadious paperwork, and I don't intend for that to happen," he growled.

Zim was muttering under his breath and caressing his bruised antennae, but he heard the word "death" and looked up, confused.

While he was distracted, Sizz-Lorr opened Zim's PAK and slipped a tracker inside.

"Death? She isn't dead, is she? Oh NO!! Is she a zombie??" he demanded, looking deranged.

His response puzzledhim for a moment.

"Huh? Zombie? ... no. She's starving to death, ... grrr, ENOUGH! Take the food and get out, Zim. But I will find you. I WILL track you down and I WILL bring you back for good," he threatened him.

"Yeah yeah, sure, whatever, FRY LORD, " said Zim sarcastically.

Sizz-Lorr grabbed Zim round the middle like a squeegee toy and growled. For good measure, he threw him out of the kitchen, over the counter and into the lobby.

Following him out, he saw that the girl was simply nibbling on the Vort dog he'd given her. Impressive. She was aware that the sudden intoduction of food to an empty ... stomach, was it? would induce vomiting, and so she was taking it slow instead of scarfing it all down like Eric the Blob.

Zim got to his feet and gathered up his fallen "disguise". He didn't look angry. He looked smug and Sizz-Lorr hated him for it.

Turning a slightly more sympathetic eye on the jailer, he put the food into a bag and gave it to her.

"After awhile, you'll be sorry you didn't let me keep him, exploding bracelet or no exploding bracelet," he said, so Zim couldn't hear. The girl managed a weak smile that looked grotesque with the dried maroon blood around her mouth.

"Thank you..." she said gratefully.

Sizz-Lorr was glad, at least, to see that on her way back to the door, she grabbed Zim by the upper arm and dragged him out.

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PLEASE ReVIEW!! 


	12. Making friends and further exposure

I know I haven't updated this one in awhile, because the computer's been down, so here it is. Another chapter. Aren't you lucky?

there is some unexpected hints of zim romance in this, I didn't expect my crazy brainmeats to come up with, but it seems zim is starting to like his jailer "friend". I introduce two new OC's into this one and their pictures will soon be up for view on deviantart. look for them, my deviantart name is SaoirseRanekaera

Invader zim and all affiliates are copyright of viacom and Jhonen vasquez.

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Zim knew the moment they stepped outside the restaurant that things were worse than he'd thought at first. She was just acting. There was no force or strength in the human girl's delicate five fingered hands. She was barely holding his arm. It was all for show, but why? To show Sizz-Lorr that she would be fine?

Well, that she was anything but fine was obvious, he thought disdainfully. The strange red colored blood still dribbled from her mouth and her skin was pasty white. He didn't want anyone to think he was getting soft, but he brushed her hand off his arm and made her stand still. He re-examined her from a different perspective.

Her clothes hung on her, like sheets, so he couldn't see how thin she was, but he noticed her legs were wobbly and her hands shaky.

"Can you stand?" he demanded.

She wiped blood off her mouth with the back of her hand, which by now was covered in smeared blood. The red color was making him queasy.

He wasn't fooled.

He took a special device out of his PAK and turned it on. It showed the insides of different living beings, skeletal structure, muscle structure, even something as simple as basic x-ray vision to see beneath clothing.

He turned it on her and if his composure wasn't so... AWEsome, his jaw would have dropped.

Human beings were more like Irkens naked than they were clothed. Of course, this one was female and so had her mammary glands on her chest, but even so, too many bones showed through. Rib cage, pelvic bone, shoulder joints, collar bone... all showed through too much. She was nothing but skin and bone. She was really not well.

According to his memory, there was a planet nearby, concquered by the Armada years ago, that had been converted to a military hospital planet, called Band-aidia. He couldn't risk going there, for fear of being caught... but if she died... wait a minute... Why didn't he just take the device she carried? Then he'd be his OWN jailer!

One more look at the girl without his x-ray device changed his mind somewhat. Mostly, he thought it was in her eyes... they were green and sad looking and her expression was weak. This was ridiculous! Was he getting soft after all??

He groaned inwardly. He would need to improve his human disguise. That meant hiding his beautiful green skin. Making himself look human would be the least conspicuous. No one had ever seen one away from Earth, so he could pass by undetected.

He took her by the hand, not caring how bony it felt even through his glove, and marched her towards the place where they'd parked the Voot runner and Tak's repaired, customized Spittle runner.

He slammed her into the side of his own Voot runner and kept her there, pressing her to it with his spider leg attachements. She didn't struggle.

He rummaged around in the storage compartment of his Voot runner and eventually found what he was looking for. It was an all around Medi-kit. She was drooling her filthy human blood because her stomach was eating itself. Maybe there was something in the kit to fix the hole in her pathetically weak human organ.

He dug out a thin strip that looked like human gauze but was actually a sterile sort of patch desgined for internal injuries in aliens who didn't have the benefit of superior Irken PAK technology.

He unrolled the bundle of medicinal patch stuff and cutt off a piece. Immediately, the end he'd severed patched itself up, like a wound suturing itself.

He brought out the organ harvester from his PAK and stuck the medicine inside. Using the x-ray device and concentrating (he didn't want to remove her stomach, after all, simply introduce the medicine to it) he teleported the medicine strip to the hole in her stomach, caused by digestion fluids and acid.

She immediately straightened up and with the x-ray device, Zim saw her stomach muscles tense up.

"Urk... whoa... what was that?" she asked weakly. She held a hand to her stomach and looked vaguely sick. Her skin took a curious, pale green shade.

"All Irken soldiers are trained in basic medical care, in case we get hurt. I don't need you bleeding to death, do I? Don't want to explode... not MY squeedily spooch, anyway," he made an excuse. It was pretty pathetic, but it was better than letting her know the only reason he'd helped her was pity.

'Face it', his mind told him, 'you've been hanging around her a lot and she's been almost nothing but nice to you. Of COURSE you'd feel sorry for her in a time like this. You LIKE her'.

He shook his head rapidly and ignored all thoughts on those lines. Invaders needed no friends!

He started to get into the Voot runner, anxious to get to Band-aidia and get her "fixed" so he could take her to his home planet, Irk and be rid of her once and for all. Remove all doubt once and for all. He could NOT let petty emotions get the better of his superior training.

He watched in a mirror inside the Voot as Rain climbed into the cockpit of Tak's ship, already forming an idea for a new, better human disguise for himself for the now-inevitable trip to Band-aidia.

He powered up the ship's engines and, so many feet behind him, so did she. It wasn't far to Band-aidia, and the food Sizz-Lorr had given her free of charge should hold her down for the trip of a week. He enabled the remote link between the two ships so she wouldn't have to pilot it herself.

They crossed the hemispheric barrier between planet Foodcourtia and outer space and they were off.

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"Are you alright?"

She stared dully at the computer in Tak's ship and did not miss the hard edge to the voice of Tak's personality. There always seemed to be a hard, cold edge to her voice. At least she knew what to listen for if ever she ran into the REAL Tak and gave her her ship back.

"I think so," she murmered. She felt like throwing up, to be honest. The pain in her stomach was gone, for the moment, but the food she'd nibbled on back in Schloogorgh's was not settling well. It wasn't disgusting, per-say, but it WAS food, introduced to an empty stomach. The forward lurch of the ship going into overdrive didn't help matters.

She wealy called up communications and asked Zim where they were going in such a hurry, but his expression was odd and he didn't answer. He was writing furiously on some sort of writing pad (VERY hi-tech) so she severed the call and simply layed back and munched on one of the odd-looking Vortdogs. They tasted a bit like regular hot dogs, but they were a bit easier to bite into and tasted a lot gamier, like wild animal instead of processed parts. Not bad, but if she ate too many too fast (she was starving, both figuratively and literally) she would go into shock and get sicker.

"Huh. Lookit that," she said dully, glancing out the cockpit window, "outer space is still black."

"Sarcastic as always, I see," said the ship in Tak's voice.

"You know it," she replied, but her heart really wasn't in it to say anything at all, so her voice sounded rather dull and weak.

"A bioscan of your body shows that you are seriously ill, Rain. It seems Zim is leading us to Planet Bnad-aidia. You can get fixed up there," said Tak's voice.

Despite her cloud of sickness, she barely suppressed a snort of laughter.

" "Band-aidia" ?" she repeated skeptically. It seemed the leaders of the Irken race re-named conquered planets whatever the hell popped into their heads first.

The ship said nothing.

She wasn't aware of falling asleep, but she guessed she must have dozed off because with an unpleasant bump, she was jolted awake. The ship had landed closely behind Zim's on a planet as wholly different from Foodcourtia and Earth as was possible to be.

The sky was a pale, creamy-white color with what appeared to be three moons of various sizes. The dirt under her feet looked like any other kind of dirt. Ships flew everywhere, most of them with the symbol she had taken to be the Irken military symbol. She looked for Zim and raised an eyebrow. You had to be kidding...

He had painted his skin a healthy looking peach color and lengthened his wig so it covered the area of his head where there would be ears. Now he looked completely human. He had also changed his clothes. He now wore a white t shirt and the same black pants and boots.

"Come, human. Let's get you "fixed" so I can get home to Irk," he said unpleasantly, stomping past her. She followed as fast as her wobbly legs would take her.

"Nice shirt. You look wierd wearing anything but pink," she joked as she walked past him.

"It's not pink! It's red, and it's the official Invader uniform!" he insisted.

She smirked.

"It's pink."

Zim said nothing.

"You should be honored that Zim woulde ven take you to a hospital planet to get better," he growled. He was leading her through deserted streets and up to an enormous white building. Said building stretched too far either side for her to see its entirety, it was so huge.

Zim forced himself to take her by the hand, to look authentic, and dragged her up the steps and into the main lobby, which was covered in what this planet was originally famous for; marble.

The Irken female who was manning the desk looked quite busy and Zim couldn't help but think her pretty. She had pink-tinged eyes and her antennae were extra curly.

"Species?" she intoned, sounding bored. She had a light voice.

"Human, both of us, but it's my uh... sister that needs help," he lied.

"Oh, so now I'm your sister?" she whispered close to his head. He ignored her.

"Human... human... we've never had that species here before. You'll have to wait over there," said the woman, and she pointed to a deserted waiting room covered in holo-magazines, television screens and what looked like alien toys.

As they walked over to sit down, Zim noticed only one other living thing in the room he hadn't seen before. A tiny Irken smeet wearing the typical Elite-In-Training uniform. There was a thin scratch along his upper arm.

"What is that?" asked Rain.

"An Irken smeet. It's what we call Irken babies," he added, seeing her puzzled look.

"Why's he out here instead of Irk if he's a baby?" she asked, taking a seat. The smeet, it seemed, heard her, because he answered before Zim could.

"Because even though I'm still really really young and kinda little, we Irkens are born completely independant." His voice was tiny.

Rain smiled despite her obvious discomfort and giggled.

The smeet smiled back, then tilted his head and asked what was wrong with her. Since it WAS a smeet in training and he looked too young to even be allowed out of the underground training facilities on Irk, Zim supposed he had probably sunck aboveground and gotten hurt.

"I don't know. Starving to death, I guess, but I can't eat too much too fast or I'll get even sicker," said Rain, and she lifted her shirt to reveal the same pale flesh of her face and arms. Her bones showed through prominently. Zim counted about 20 pairs of ribs.

"Wow... " said the smeet.

Zim ignored the two of them and waited impatiently. She was lucky he was even giving her the chance. He had taken her to the Irken Hospital planet Band-aidia to get her taken care of, without so much as a thank you, and she wanted to talk to an Irken baby rather than Zim? Fine! Her could ignore her, too.

"Zim," she nudged him gently. He growled irritably and resisted the urge to shove her back.

"What is it, stink human," he reverted back to his old pet name for the human race instead of calling her by her name, as had taken to doing lately.

"How ARE your species born, anyway? Cloning or y'know... normally?" she asked.

Zim looked at her, finally and saw she was simply curious, not making fun at all like the Dib-monkey so often did.

He sighed. He had no idea what this "normal" way she spoke of was, but as far as he knew (he shuddered to think of it) Irken "reproduction" started with Harvesting Day. He explained all about it.

"So let me get this straight... this Harvesting day is when all Irkens are basically chased by crazy robots ripping their skin off to get DNA? AAnd then the cells are mixed and you make clones without ever having to have sex like normal?" she summed up.

Zim had never quite heard it put that way, but he shrugged and nodded. The little Irken smeet, on the other hand, was looking at him oddly.

"You're not Irken. How do you know all this?" he demanded.

"Read it in a book somewhere," he lied quickly. Actually, he WAS Irken. No one could know WHO he was, but the fact that he was Irken wasn't what he needed to hide. And did she say humans still reproduced through having sex? He laughed inwardly.

"Primitive stupid humans, still use "sex"..." he muttered, shaking his head.

Rain frowned and her eyes narrowed, but then she smiled in what Zim took to be a sweet manner. He soon learned this was not the case.

"You only say that because you can't have it," she muttered back, and there was a sarcastic edge to her voice.

"You've been listening to Tak's downloaded personality too long," Zim said moodily.

"The human can come in now," said the female Irken from over at the desk, and Rain got to her feet unsteadily and started to go, closely followed by Zim so he didn't explode. The smeet called them back.

"What's your name?" he asked Rain. His large lilac-colored eyes were simply curious.

"Rain. This is uh... Marc," she said, pointing to Zim. Marc?? How dare she give him such a horrible false name!

"I'm Dax. Maybe I'll see you around!" the little smeet waved. He wwas disturbingly ... cute, as the humans would say.

Zim followed his sick jailer as she was led to a room off the lobby by another Irken, this one ressed in a typical medi-uniform. Light blue robes that didn't reach the floor, boots, white gloves instead of black and a medicinal logo on his PAK.

He motioned to a chair set into the floor and Rain took a seat, looking shifty. Zim simply tried to look inconspicuous.

"Your name, age in your planet's years and species?" asked the Irken doctor. He was holding an Irken clipboard, which was much like the ones the Tallest used to take notes.

"Rain. I'm from Planet Earth. Eighteen years old in Earth years. I'm human," she replied.

The doctor looked puzzled.

"Two Irk years," Zim converted it in his head. She was young in Irk years, but by her own standards, she was about fully grown.

The dotor scribbled some more stuff down and Zim noticed he had four fingers on one hand rather than the typical Irken three. If it was a birth defect, he would have been deactivated long ago, and he wondered about it. The doctor caught him staring, apparently.

"The Tallest don't know, and no one else really cares. I can still do my job," he said, noticing him noticing.

"Okay... what's the problem?" he asked Rain.

As an answer, she stripped off her entire shirt and sat there half naked, wearing nothing but her pants and some sort of undergarnment over her grotesque mammary glands. Despite the gland's fleshy fatness, both Zim and the doctor could still see how thin she was. Her bony chest heaved in and out every time she breathed.

The cotor set down his clip board and approached her, removing his gloves for a moment and feeling the bones along her collar.

"Hmm... skeletal structure isn't too different. You're not supposed to be this thin, are you?" he asked.

Rain gave a weak laugh.

"No. Not really, no. Healthy weight for someone my size is around 130 pounds. We flew out from my planet a year ago, cause I guess it takes that long, and I didn't bring enough food, so I'm starving to death," she explained.

The doctor replaced his gloves and made another note on his clip board.

"Hmm... I'd say all you need is food and rest. Take things easy," said the doctor, his red eyes narrowed suspiciously at the device he was now holding. Zim started to sweat. Uh-oh... it was the same x-ray scope he himself had. He could see that Zim's organs were not the same as Rain's! They had to get outta here!!

"Hold on a minute," said the doctor firmly, and he held Zim down where he was. The pale paint thatcovered him rubbed off on the doctor's glove, revealing his own green flesh.

"I can explain, doctor, sir," said Rain, stepping between them.

The Irken doctor decided to hear her out. Standing up, they were exactly the same height.

"I'm human, but he's Irken, like you. He was stranded on my planet and I was made his jailer, but I... didn't like it," she began to explain.

"Didn't like what?" the doctor demanded.

She raised her head and Zim smiled to himself when she looked straight into the doctor's eyes with her large, green ones.

"I wanted to leave my planet and wander the stars. Just wander. Explore different planets, learn more. I didn't want to be trapped on my own planet, wallowing in the human's stupidity. So I bribed Zim here to take me away if I let him go. Please don't tell anyone?" she begged.

The doctor looked sympathetic, his eyes upturned and sad. He sighed and looked at the floor, his cliboard at his side. Then he looked at Zim and back to Rain again.

"I've heard of Zim, the criminal defect. But," he stopped glaring at Zim and turned a sympathetic look to Rain, "I'll forget about this whole visit if you just take this and leave." He handed her a bottle of supplement pills, hypoallergenetic for any alien species.

Criminal defect? ZIM?? How dare he!!

He started to protest, but Rain grabbed his head in her hands and clamped her other hand over his mouth so he couldn't speak. He struggled and pulled at her hands, but she was using up what strength she had to keep him silent.

They started to leavein a hurry, but Rain stopped and looked back at the doctor, who was rubbing his arm, looking shamed.

"Why?" was all she asked.

The doctor looked up and managed a sad smile.

"There are more Irkens who think for themselves, outside the military than the Tallest want to think, human Rain. I, too, like to wander sometimes."

"What's your name, doctor? I'm going to tell the Tallest all about you and your acusations!" Zim demanded. Rain again clamped a hand over his mouth and hissed near his antennae, where she knew he would hear.

"Shut it! Leave him to his own head, will you?!"

She turned to the doctor and repeated Zim;s question. The doctor glared at Zim and answered her so he couldn't hear.

"My name is Malak. Look me up if you're ever around."

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Well, it seems like Rain is making friends wherever she goes, and Dax and Malak will return later, so no worries, lol.

Again, Dax and Malak are both mine, so no stealing!


	13. Stranded

Hey, this one is gonna be mostly from Malak's POV cause Idk how a smeet would think, I'd be too tempted to make him sound like a five year old thinking to himself. It's pretty evident that Irkens are capable of thinking, talking, moving and taking care of themselves directly from birth, so that's a no go.

The point of this chapter is simply for myself to further eeach OC's personality, get them down, so I know how I want to write them. My hands will be doing most of the thinking, so if there seem to be any errors, I apologize.

Please review!

IZ is (c) Viacom and Jhonen Vasquez

also, I dunno if I ever mentioned it, but Rain has a slight British accent

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Medi-Irken Malak saw many, many more patients that day, each with varying degrees of injuries. There was one Irken who, for reasons unknown, had a small Slorrbeast who had broken a leg. There was a small, female smeet who had been found wandering the plains of Irk and been brought to Band-aidia for an evaluation. There were other alien species that had nothing to do with Irk, with everything from concussions to open wounds.

Yet Zim and the "human" girl, Rain, stayed in the back of hismind for the rest of the day. Her case, if one could call it that, since he had disregarded it in the eyes of the Irken Armada, had been extremely mild in comparison with the rest of his patients, but still... she presisted. Something about her had seemed... different. Zim was criminally insane, dangerously intelligent and mostly everyone on Irk hated him. The Tallest themselves would love nothing better than to see him torn limb from limb, in fact. So why had she bothered to stick up for him?

Her voice, too, was strange... soft and subtle, with a sweet undetone, as if she were in quite a lot of pain and trying hard to sugar coat it so it didn't show. The pain, he could understand; her organs were eating her from the inside out! It was imperative that she get food. But her accent, too, was odd. She stretched her vowels, making her words sound exotic and strange, yet welcoming somehow. He did not know the girl namerd Rain, but if ever they met again, he felt he could trust her. That was what he thought.

His next patient stepped in, and he was surprised to see yet another smeet. They sure did love to sneak out of their classes and get maimed by the defense bots on Irk's surface, didn't they?

This one was a boy, with unusually short antennae for one so young and he wore the uniform of an elite in training. It had a smiley face on the bottom hem to show he was still a baby.

"Name?" he asked.

"Dax, Elite-In-Training, sir," said the boy.

"What seems to be the issue?" he asked. He already knew, of course; the smells of Irken blood was thick in this small, enclosed room. He had not missed the sight of congealed blood on he boy's forearm. It stood out a much darker green than his skin and smelled more metallic than coppery like the human's had. Her blood had been a bright red and smelled of cheap copper.

"My arm, sir. My PAK didn't heal it quite all the way," said the little smeet.

Malak could see as much. The bots on irk had a special weapon, a slow-acting poison that slowed the healing process, making it difficult for even an Irken PAK to safely close up any small wounds.

He stuck Dax's arm with a small needle and he winced.

"Least this isn't as bad as that girl who was in the waiting room," he muttered.

"What girl is that?" asked Malak, making idle chit chat as he swabbed the dried blood around Dax's cut. It came right off, revealing the fleshy pink-red muscle beneathe. The main tendon that went down the center of the muscles in an Irken's upper arm was green and vitally important, so he was grateful to see it was not harmed. Without it, an Irken lost use of their arm.

"She said her name was Rain."

Malak didn't falter in his administration of the tiny child's arm, but again, the sight of the girl's bones showing through pale, fleshy skin rose up to the surface of his brain.

"Ah, yes. Nothing much was wrong with her, except she was harboring that defect, Zim," said Malak, not really paying attention to the boy's lavender colored eyes. They were so light as to look almost velveteen.

Dax laughed.

"They tell stories about him in the underground classrooms where they teach me to be an Elite soldier. How he single handedly caused Horrible Painfull Overload Day 1 and 2," said Dax.

Malak chuckled lightheartedly.

"Yeees, that, too. But Rain and I had something in common, or I would have kept her here," said Malak. He felt he needed to get it off his chest or Rain would be in his head all week.

"What's that?" asked Dax.

"We both like to wander. It was the only thing that brought her so far from her home planet," he replied. He put the needle away, finished with the boy's cut and bandaged it.

"You think she'll get caught? If Zim's going back to Irk, then she has to go with him. She's his jailer, right? So won't she get caught?" asked Dax worriedly. It seemed Malak, who was getting on even in Irken years, a healthy 50, was not the onyl one worried or thinking about the human girl. This little smeet had taken a liking to her as well.

"I shall certainly keep my ear to the ground, Dax. You head on back to Irk and don't stray aboveground again until you have to," said Malak sternly.

"Yes, sir, thank you, " said Dax, once again subservient beneathe the taller Irken's gaze, and he toddled out of the room.

Malak's shift for the day was done, but so much on his mind still remained.

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Meanwhile, Zim and Rain themselves had landed on Irk, in the middle of what appeared to be a swamp. It was lined here and there with shoddy looking dead trees an odd yellow color and what smelled strongly of ammonia and chlorine. It was making her eyes water and her sinuses recoil.

"What is this stuff?" she complained to Zim. She pulled her foot away from the muck and rubbed the toe of her boot in the sparse grass.

"Ammonia. It's what we have here instead of water. Ammonia and mercury," replied Zim absentmindedly. He was rummaging around in the storage space of his Voot runner for something. Now that they had finally reached his home planet, she wondered what, if anything, he was going to do with GIR.

The sky above her was a dark, throbbing red with very few pale clouds. The single sun Irk orbited was pale but larger than Earth's sun. It wasn't so hot here.

Zim finally seemed to find what he had been looking for because he withdrew from the Voot holding what looked like some wires, a lot of black tape, some clothing and a small, complicated looking piece of machinery.

"What is that?" she asked.

Zim layed the objects on the hard ground at her feet and gave her a wry smile that didn't come close to reaching his eyes.

"Your disguise. And I believe we made a deal, human Rain. I brought you here to Irk. You said you'd help me. So help," he demanded.

Wait... those had been her exact words. Did Zim expect her to hand over the remote to his bracelet as "help"?

Then her desire to wander overwhelmed her. Who cared? She had what she wanted. Something else to do.

She handed Zim the keychain fob-sized remote and Zim began to laugh like a demented lunatic who's finally gotten his heart's desire. His tongue was indeed very much like an earthworm, dark red, long, thin and tube-like.

"Thank you!" he cried sarcastically, and he ran for his Voot runner and was about to get in, when he stopped.

"GIR!" he yelled. It seemed he hadn't forgotten the little robot.

"Still in sleep mode," she replied dryly. She looked at the "disguise" Zim had dug out for her, a strange act of kindness, coming from him. he wires and tape were presumably so she could have antennae, and the clothing was identical to his own outfit, boots, gloves and everything. It didn't look as if it would fit her. She had no idea what the small mechanical thing was.

Zim approached Tak's ship, but the ship lashed out at him.

"I told you to stay away from me, Zim!" Tak's voice shouted. Zim jumped nibly out of the way.

"If you would?" he asked Rain, attempting to smile once more. The look in his eyes said he was up to something.

She didn't really feel like it, but GIR would get her caught a lot faster than she would herself. She retrieved the dead robot from the cockpit of Tak's ship.

"Bye, GIR. Don't forget me, kay?" she said quietly, so Zim didn't hear. She had a feeling she would stand out regardless of how good her disguise was and when she was captured, maybe Zim would be there with GIR. She got feelings like that sometimes. It was better to be prepared, she reminded herself.

Zim pressed anothe button in the little robot's head and he sprang to life once more, his blue eyes glowing, the same stupid smile pasted on his face.

"Hey! Where are we?" he said, sounding surprised. He looked around and saw Rain. He smiled and waved furiously.

"HIIII!"

"Hi, GIR," she waged back, not as heartily, although she was glad to see the robot again. She had eaten half the sack of Vort dogs and a few mouthfulls of what Zim had claimed was Mooshminky and that was all she dared eat, for fear of chucking it all up again. She still felt incredibly wobbly.

"So that's it, you're just leaving me here?" she demanded.

Zim was on the verge of taking off in his ship when his gaze halted for a split second. For just a second, he looked... ashamed? She must have been seeing things.

He threw something out of the cockpit and in an instant, had taken off, leeaving her in a cloud of dust that smelled of dirt and ammonia.

She was all alone now. On an alien planet that was possibly hostile. Surrounded by fetid ammonia swamp and dead trees. The only company she had was Tak's ship. But that might be an advantage...

She quickly undressed, glad to get of of her grimy clothes, and pulled on what she only assumed was one of Zim's spare uniforms. The pants fit her fine but the boots were too narrow. She pulled her own back on. The gloves, too, were awkward, as they only had three fingers. She tucked those into a hidden pocket of the shirt, which just barely reached the top of the pants. If she stretched her arms above her head, her belly was revealed. The fabric was soft to the touch, but not heavy like cotton. The pink undershirt was loose around her arms and the shoulder pieces felt annoying.

It smelled faintly of earth dust so she supposed Zim hardly ever wore this particular shirt. The pants were a lot looser than they would ordinarily have been because she'd lost so much weight.

She put the boots in the back of Tak's ship and tried to get used to looking down and seeing herself wear anything but black or blue. She would never alive have ever worn pink. It was a garish, ugly color.

"Now what?" she asked no one.

"Might I suggest searching through my downloaded database to learn a little more about my planet," said Tak's downloaded personality.

She shrugged and hopped back into the cockpit, a bit more spry than before now that she was where she more or less wanted to be. She was eager to take off and wander around. But to pass on the Irken home world, she would need to know how to blend in, and she didn't have a SIR unit to help her.

"Could you help translate?" she asked.

"Of course. Data streming will show up translated into your human language on your right," barked Tak's voice.

Buttons were pressed electronically and long scripts in irken were rolled out in front of her. There was a beeping noise and to her right, it all began to unwind in English.

"Things to watch out for on Planet Irk if you are not Irken..." she read aloud to herself... Well, it was as good a start as any.

She settled herself down and read on. Above her, the pale Irken sun moved across the sky.

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I'm gonna stoP it here, dun dun DUUUN!! cliffhanger! You'll have to review if you want more, because honestly, I'm gonna have fun writing about the Irken home world... heeheehee. Most of the animals you'll reaed about are purely my imagination running wild and having a ball. PLEASE REVIEW!! 


	14. Beware, the Slorrbeast

Okay, hey, yeah sorry for the long wait. My mom's computer crashed again and she had to have the hard drive wiped clean, so I lost all my stuff... I had the USB port in there not a week beforehand, too, and I didn't even back anything up... feel stupid. Anyway, I'm typing this up on my piece of shit computer and I'll transfer it over and upload it if my mother ever gets her computer rebooted the right way.

Rain wishes she never read some of the onboard library of Tak's ship

Remember, the creatures in this fic, with the exception of the slorrbeast, are my own creation, and I made descriptions up purely from the black hole of useless information that is my mind. PLEASE REVIEW!

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She had been sitting there reading the translated text from the on-ship computer for hours, according to the clock on her cell phone (which, of course, measured in Earth time) and the air inside the ship was becoming stale, since it wasn't powered to full. She wished she hadn't read so much. The animal life on Irk was almost as bad as the animal life on Earth; there were just fewer animals here and most of them in the wild were dangerous.

The Slorrbeast, which COULD be dangerous, was a giant lizard-like thing with wet, purple skin and was usally ccompanied by several young. They fed on dirt and swamp grass (uh oh, she was IN a swamp) and just before giving birth, their bodies got swollen and jiggly and the birthing fluid was, apparently, juice. The Irkens used it as one of the key ingredients in juicy drinks.

Then there were the enormous bugs. She HATED bugs. Most of them looked disgusting but were ordinarily harmless, all except the Dirt Ants. They had fewer legs than ants on earth, were five times bigger, dark blue with blazing red eyes and bit HARD. Their bites were extremely poisonous to Irkens.

"Most of the venemous animals here on Irk might not harm you, seeing as you're an alien and not Irken," Tak's ship informed her as she read on.

"If you're trying to be reassuring, it's not working," she said nonchalantly.

She read on about the dragons (only a little bit like the dragons of human folklore, but seveal sizes smaller and more vicious) and some ight-legged cow-like animal called a gooshlarg and all manner of creepy, slimy swamp-dwelling creatures until she got to something interesting that she might not mind running into.

It was a horse-like creature, pure white, with a wild, flowing mane of silver and instead of hooves, had long claws and sheathed talons at least four inches long. The talons were coated with bona fide sterling. Due to over-killing, there weren't many left and were very hard to find. It was called a Horpikokt, but whatever it was CALLED, SHE thought it was gorgeous.

Maybe she'd run into one.

By the time she'd decided she'd read enough about the creatures on Irk, she climbed out of the cockpit and decided to put the rest of her disguise on, just in case. A plastic headband with the wires and tape Zim had left behind made antennae and she herself had brought green hair color, because as she hd earlier told Zim, "like hell if I'm gonna shave it off for authenticity, I'll just be an Irken with hair". She also had several tubes of green skin paint from a few halloweens ago. Zim hd left her colored eye lenses and she put these on as well.

She looked at her reflection in one of the ship's mirrors and foudn her contact lenses made her entire eye look bright green. She didn't look very convincing, because of her hair, so she slicked it back with some water from a bottle in her bag and tied it back in a ponytail.

Time to go exploring.

She had Tak's ship produce a sort of remote control and, keeping the ship itself on low power, set it to hover several inches off the ground, trailing it behind her like a giant metal dog on a leash.

Wherever she walked, her feet sank into the soft ground and made sick splooshing sounds. High above her head, he bright red-pink sky revealed the occasional orbting satelite or passing ship and the sun beat down on her mercilessly. It wasn't hot, per say, but it was muggy and it made her skin tingle unpleasantly. Fifteen minutes and she was sweating profusely.

She was running low on water. She only had three big bottles of it left and was now rationing herself on it. As for food, she was again aching for it. She had long ago finished the food Sizz-Lorr had kindly given to her. Just as she was wondering where she would get her next meal, she spied what looked like a city up ahead of her.

The buildings had more rounded edges to them and were every shade of pink, mauve, purple and red imaginable. More ships orbited there, and every now and then, she spotted Irkens miling about doing mundane things. She longed to go up and talk to someone other than a huffy sip with artificial intelligence, but knew her disguise would not fool anybody.

Slightly depressed, but eeagerto explore more, she turned away from the city and came face to face with one of the Slorrbeasts. She had six young in tow, looking more like swollen salamanders than anything.

The slorrbeast growled menacingly, makng her take a step back. Tak's ship did nothing to help.

It snarled, baring a row of tiny, sharp teeth. Its eyes blazed yellow-orange and it made her take another step back. From far behind her, she heard a shout.

"Um... easy, mum... I'm not after the kids," she tried assuring it. Either the slorrbeast didn't care, or it couldn't understand her british accent. She'd learned to talk there, but her mother's visa had expired and she'd been forced to move back to the states.

She heard footsteps from behind her, and Tak's ship spoke up.

"Tell them you're a scout, they won't question you."

A rough hand shoved her back and she saw three Irkens in front of her, all wearing the same uniform she was. One had a hose protruding from his PAK and he was pointing the end of it at the Slorrbeast.

"Get back behind city limits, you know the rules!"

The Irken had a gruff voice and one antennae was slightly bent.

The slorrbeast reared up on two legs, it's fat tail thrashing back and forth, its young squealing in response.

"Jab it!" said the Irken on the left. One of his antennae wwas completely gone. All that was there was a quivering black stub. It looked painful. She wondered if they grew back.

"On three!" came a more feminine voice. It came from the Irken on the far right, who had curly antennae. Hurriedly, Rain reached up and bent her own "antennae" so they looked curly. She didn't need anyone mistaking her for a guy.

The slorrbeast sauntered away, nudging its young along before anyone got to any jabbing.

The Irkens all turned to her, and she suddenly got nervous. Her mouth went dry. What would they do to her if they found out she wasn't actually Irken?

"Hey, thanks, it sort of took me by surprise," she tried sounding like it was no big deal, giant purple lizards attacked you all the time.

"Not a problem, soldier. What are you doing way out here?" demanded the gruff voiced Irken. He had dark red eyes and the same three fingered hands as Zim.

"I'm a scout," she replied, taking the ship's advice.

"Ahh. Scouring the area, making sure no renegades and rebels get up to anything. Keep up the good work, then, soldier-?"

She cast about quickly, trying to make up an Irken-sounding name for herself.

"Rain." DAMMIT! Not very creative. It was HER name.

"Soldier, Rain," said the middle Irken. He smiled grimly, slapped her on the shoulder and walked away. The female Irken folowed him. The one with the broken antennae, however, stared at her curiously.

"What are you," he finally demanded. He had a lighter voice.

"What do you mean?" she demanded back, trying to sound unafraid. She had been discovered! She was done for!

"I'm not stupid, and you're not Irken. I won't tell on you," he cajoled her. His eyes were a soft, muted red-pink color.

"Human, from the Milky way Galaxy, planet Earth," she finally admited, sounding dejected. So much for her big disguise.

"Hey, I've heard of that place. Isn't that where the Tallest banished-?... OH," he finally said, his eyes round. He was putting it all together in his head and in five seconds, he knew the entire story. All except her plan.

"How did you bribe him into bringing you here?" asked the Irken. He leaned against the side of Tak's ship, relaxing, and she relaxed slightly herself; maybe he really WOULDN'T turn her in?

"I knew the tripwould take awhile. I told him I'd let him "escape". I didn't pack enough food on purpose, and threatened to blow his bracelet up if he didn't stop on foodcourtia to feed me. Sizz-Lorr slipped a tracking device into his PAK when he wasn't paying attention. In a way, he's still stranded," she explained, figuring he could fill in the blanks.

"Mmm hmm. And why did you want to leave your own planet? From what I know, the Armada knows it's there, but not much else is known about it except your species hasn't gotten out of their own solar system yet," asked the Irken. He was examining Tak's handiwork impressively.

"I wasn't happy wallowing in their stupidity. I wanted to get out, wander, learn new things, see new stuff, know something no one else does. I was curious," she said, shrugging.

"And you think they're lazy," added the Irken, looking at her.

"Yeah. My name really is Rain, though. I'm not a very good liar," she admitted.

"I figured. And no other Irken has hair, green or otherwise. Not a bad disguise, though," he complimented her.

It was bugging her, driving her crazy, she HAD to ask him.

"Why aren't you turning me in? Experimenting on me? Handing me over?" she demanded.

The Irken threw his head back and laughed good-naturedly.

"Looks like you're sick, little alien girl. I assume Zim stopped on Band-aidia?" he assumed, the laugh still in his expressionless eyes.

"Yes," she replied.

"I have an old friend there. Actually, I should start at the beginning. We Irkens have two distinct types. Military and civilian. The civilians are more social, the military... you get the picture. I used to be one of the civilians. The doctor on Band-aidia is an old friend of mine, Malak," explained the Irken. He folded his arms and leaned further into the ship, resting.

"I met him. He seemed nice. He figured me out, too, but he let me go," she admitted.

"Sounds like Malak. I'm not going to tell on you, either, but one word of advice. Get a better disguise," he advised her.

"What if someone else finds me?" she asked.

"Do what you just did. Tell'em you're scouting for renegades. They won't question you. My name's Ralek," he introduced himself, saluting.

"Rain, eheh," she said again, giving an awkward salute back. She didn't think she did it right, because Ralek laughed again.

"I have to get back to work. Good luck, Rain. Oh wait," he said, patting his clothes. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a card. He handed it to her.

"There's a food place deeper in this city, called Slooshie's. Guy who runs the place is another old friend of mine, tell him Ralek sent you, you can eat all you want," he said, smiling. Rain took the card, feeling dumbfounded.

"Why?" was all she could say.

Ralek laughed again.

"You think you're the first alien to be curious about the mighty Irken Empire? No, you aren't. I'm sort of a double agent, working for the Empire full time, helping renegades like you part time. Malak and Slooshie help out however they can. It's just your good luck you've met all three of us. Just... keep it quiet, will you?" he asked.

She smiled, truly grateful.

"Sure," she replied.

Ralek waved again and turned to walk away, but she called him back.

"Yes?"

"What happened to your antennae? And do they grow back?" she asked on impulse.

Ralek laughed and rolled his eyes, walking back towards her.

"An Irken's antennae serve a few purposes. They register sounds and feel changes in air pressure, like if someone was standing behind us, you know... we'd know. They're the most sensitive part of our bodies. One of mine got ripped off on Meekrob a few years back and it hasn't grown back yet. I'm not sure if they do, to be honest," he explained.

It was as she had suspected, but she had just wanted to make sure. Next time she saw Zim, she was going to rip his out completely for not explaining anything to her.

"Thanks again, Ralek. Seeya!" she called.

"Let's hope it's not anytime too soon, because that would mean you got caught. If you do get caught, there's not a thing I can do about it, kid," he called back, and with that, he walked off deeper into the Irken city.

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PLEASE REVIEW!! Ralek and Slooshi'e is mine, no stealing. 


	15. Slooshie's

Sorry I've been neglecting this one for awhile, but I had other stuff to do... and yesterday I forgot to clean out my stepdad's coolers so he took the power cord to work with him and I couldn't get on at all... pretty spiteful if you ask me.

Anyway, Rain gets an introduction to Irken food she'll never forget. AND she makes ANOTHER friend.

It occurs to me that eventually, I'll have to draw some of these people...drawings of everything can be found on my deviantart account, my penname is SaoirseRanekaera

remember: to this point, rain has taken her Irken undershirt off cause it got too hot and she hates pink

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Even after Ralek left and she forced herself to turn away from the Irken city, Tak's ship took sympathy on her.

"You're still very sick, Rain. Perhaps you SHOULD go into the city and eat something."

"You won't tell, will you? When you're reunited with the real Tak, swear on your every circuit board you won't tell Tak or ANYONE that there're Irken running loose helping renegades," she made the ship promise.

The ship was silent.

"I'm only a downloaded personality on an Irken ship with artificial intelligence," the ship finally replied.

"Swear it, or I'll leave you here to rust," she threatened. She didn't need to be the sort-of cause of Ralek, Malek and this Slooshie's deaths.

"I swear it, but if someone takes me apart and takes a closer look at my hard drive, they'll know," the ship finally gave in.

"Fine by me," Rain muttered.

She kept walking for about a quarter of a mile, when Tak's ship made a brilliant suggestion.

"Why don't you just FLY? You can save your strength for exploring when you have more of it."

Why didn't SHE think of that?

She climbed into the cockpit, closed the sheild and powered everything up to full, on manual. She was sick of flying autopilot. Let's see what this heap could REALLY do.

She punched the thrusters forward and the ship went from 0 to 120mph in three seconds flat.

A mechanical voice spoke up, not Tak's.

"Initiating g-force compensators."

She was saved being thrown back by whatever the hell "g-force" was, and instead enjoyed the wild ride. She did a loop-de-loop once before nearly being sick.

"DON'T do that again!" Tak's computer snapped. "This is a personal cruiser, not a child's toy!"

She slowed the ship down a bit and stopped doing stupid tricks. They WERE bound to get her noticed more.

Instead, she decided to look down at the scenery. There wasn't an awful lot to look at. Sparse trees here and there, a lot of swampground. Up ahead in the distance, she saw something that made her stop the ship completely.

Grass.

It was more blue than she was accustomed to, but all the same... it was grass. Hills and flatland and, even further away, another city typse thing (significantly bigger) but she just couldn't get over the grass.

So far it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen off of Earth.

She parked the cruiser behnnd a big rock just outside the bigger city, which looked much the same as the last one she'd seen except with more purple and metal on the ground instead of pavement. She activated her air hood so she could breath, thankful it was invisible to everyone. She slicked her hair back ith water so it was flatter against her head and hoped to whatever gods the Irkens had that she looked normal.

She got out of the cruiser and began to walk.

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Zim flew his Voot as far from Irk as he could get, putting as much distance between him and the human as possible. Within a few months, she would be found, no matter what. He would bet his squeedilyspooch on it.

He had stuck a tracking sensor on the undershirt of the uniform he'd given her.

It was set to track HIS movements. He'd found it in his PAK almost as soon as he'd left Foodcourtia and decided to usurp whatever plans Sizz-Lorr had in store for him.

When he thought he'd find the mighty Zim, he would find a half dead human pig smelly. He was genius!!

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She found herself approached by several Irkens in casual clothing. A few gave her odd glances, both male and female, but only one would give her what she wanted, which was directions to a place called Slooshie's.

"Place has a bad reputation with the Empire lately. There're only about five restaurants around the planet. There used to be more, but lately they've been helping non-Irkens onto the planet," said her benefactor, pointing her in the right direction.

"A friend only just told me about that bit, but I like their taquitos," she replied, trying to sound nonchalant, like it was old news.

The Irken laughed and agreed with her.

She left before he could ask any more questions.

The city was more crowded than it looked at a distance.. The buildings were rounded and brightly colored but every bit as tall as human ones.Some seemed to be houses, some apartments and others just very tall buildings. Everywhere she looked, she saw Irken ships. After awhile, she noticed there were no Irken "smeets" as Zim had called Dax. All of them were of varying heights, around her height or shorter, some a few inches taller, but none shorter than her ribcage. Most of them wore varying degrees of casual clothing, in multiple shades of red, pink, blue, green, black, white, gray or yellow. Normal eye colors seemed to be red, purple, green and any shade in between those three. She also noticed that while male and female Irkens showed purple eyes, only the male had green eyes. She found that interesting.

Eventually, she came to a more open space and saw a big sign in Irken. She recognized the first few letters and assumed it could only be Slooshie's.

To her surprise, it looked very much like an elongated hot dog stand with tables, umbrella's and chairs. The restaurant itself stretched farther back than what any customer would see, but the front of it looked quaint.

Several Irkens sat around eating voraciously, but only one seemed to have noticed her. He was very fat, with large dark green eyes and strangely short antennae. He wore adark blue shirt with one of a few Irken symbols she'd learned to recognize and a white apron stained with various substances.

The moment she approached him, he jerked a finger towards the side of the place, indicating she should go around to the side.

"Order up!" he yelled. His voice was gruff but not mean.

She got the feeling he only said it to make the customers think she was going around the side to get her order.

She walked in the direction he had indicated and found a door in the side. It wasopened and a much experienced hand pulled her roughly by the front of the shirt and into darkness.

"Keep quiet," came the voice, much quieter and more kindly. A single light appeareed and she was amazed to see that it was a candle.

Of all the amazing technology, a freaking candle.

It lit his face dramatically, making his green eyes look like bottomless pools of coldness. She shivered.

"You are female, yes?" he asked quietly.

From behind a second door behind him, she could hear noises.

"Yes. Human. From Earth. Ralek told me to find this place," she said just as quietly.

He stared at her for a second.

"It's been a long time since I've heard that accent, little human. Alright, go back out there, and take this so no one gets suspicious. I've had enough unwanted attention at my restaurant already. Just change your eye color a bit, huh? Female Irkens don't have green eyes," said who she assumed to be Slooshie himself, and he reached into the door behind him and handed her what looked like ordinary french fries and what she instantly recognized as fried mooshminky, as Sizz-Lorr had called it. It wasn't bad. A bit like overly-saturated fried dough, just less sweet and more crunchy.

She thanked him, wondering why on earth he'd said that about her accent... was she not the first human on Irk?

Or had there been another?

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PLEASE REVIEW!! I;'d write more, but my eyes won't stay open... 


	16. The real Tak's gift

Sorry for the delay, my user account was deleted and I don't have my parent's password... DAMN THEM ALL TO FUCKIN ANTARCTICA! whew, now that I got that out of my system, here it is, to amaze and satiate all your insatiable needs for updates! The next chapter!

And no, Rain is the only human on Irk, she's just not the FIRST human on Irk... as you'll discover when you keep reading this.

Invader zim (C) viacom and JCV

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Slooshie watched her go, watched her silently observe the Irkens around her, watched her learn how to act like one of them. He had seen it all before, only once, but still... one did not forget a human so easily. They were unique. Independant of one another.

He sighed and thought back to the only other human he had ever met, a male by the name of Walter Ericson. Walter had been an older man, with white hair and a but of hair on his face, what the humans called a mustache. He had told Slooshie, then just starting out as a frycook on Irk, everything he knew about his planet, called Earth. The times and the fashions, the women and the children, the ammendments and the government, the plants and the animals. It had fascinated him back then, made him want to go see it for himself. The things he had described...

His words had been beautiful. He had been a storyteller, he told Slooshie back then, a man who travels around and tells stories of their travels and such. He had found his way off Earth through means of a lost Vortian or something, but sadly, after a few good years on Irk, Slooshie had discovered the man dead in Slooshie's apartment. He had come to know the human quite well, and loved listening to the man's stories.

According to what he knew of human death rituals, he had buried the man underground near his home and there he remained, his grave marked by only a simple metal pole.

Time had obviously passed, as he had only been 16 then. He was now 20 Irk years olf, by no means old at all, but by his calculations of human time... many many years had passed on Earth. Many years indeed, and with the passage of time, things changed.

Now there was this girl, this human female, much much younger than Walter had been, but she spoke the same way. He wondered if all humans were the same as Walter had been.

He realized that he had never asked his old friend Walter anything about human family units.

Pushing sad thoughts and fond memories aside, he got back to work.

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She thoughroly enjoyed the french fries. They tasted remarkably similar to the ones she was used to. The mooshminky was fine, too. Slooshie had added sugar, for some reason. Irken sugar tasted strange... sweet, but a little strange.

She found herself thinking, again, what he had meant by "it's been a long time since I've heard that accent"... what was WRONG with the way she talked? She liked her way of talking. She was by no means FROM Great Britain, but she had picked it up from some very good friends and from then on, it just stuck. She sounded like a Brit.

She reunited with Tak's ship and decided to explore the planet a bit more.

"My sensors show that the real Tak is someplace nearby. If you don't mind, I'd like to return to her," said the ship after about thirty earth minutes had gone by. They were in another grassy place, mostly covered by metal sheeting. It was a smaller city by far than the last one they'd encountered, and it was mostly taken up by a big, long, low building from which emenated a loud humming noise. It was eye-watering.

She HAD promised to return Tak's ship to Tak herself, but how would she get around?

Slightly sad to see the ship go, she agreed to land and seek the real Tak out. She had a sensor chip in her head implant (whatever that was) and could thereby olcate her ship and vice versa.

She had changed out her green contacts for a pair of purple ones from her bag. They did the same thing Zims did but just turned her eyes a light purple.

She held the tracking device in her hands and followed the little blue dot on the screen. She was marked on the sensor as a green dot and the ship was marked as a purple dot. She had parked it behind a very large boulder.

She saw that most Irkens in this smaller city all wore a similar uniform; light green, low collars, short sleeves and a smiley face on the front near the chest. What was this place?

She had almost gotto the blue dot that was the real Irken Tak...

She walked right into someone and as she fell, she dropped the sensor. It clattered away across the metal grating and a very familiar voice growled, "watch where you're going!"

"Tak?"

She got to her feet and looked at who she had run into. It was an Irken female with dark purple eyes and some sort of wiring from her forehead to the back of her skull. She didn't look happy. Rain guessed that was why her ship never SOUNDED happy.

"Do I know you?" Tak demanded. She wore a dark purple and black striped uniform with long tails, black pants and some very neat boots. Her antennae were curled into a square-shaped whorl.

"Are you missing a ship?" asked Rain. She wanted to keep it discreet, but wasn't sure if she should tell Tak she wasn't Irken. Best to be on the safe side for now.

"Why? What do you know about my ship?" she demanded crossly.

Rain picked up the sensor and Tak's narrowed purple eyes widened. She snatched it away from her and studied it.

"You... you have my ship! Where did you steal it?" she demanded.

"I didn't steal ANYTHING, it crash landed on a planet called Earth. I simply flew it back here after learning this was where you were. Do you want it back or not? I don't have a ship of my own, I'd love to have one if you don't," she demanded, trying to come across as sarcastic.

Tak glared at her again.

"I'll follow you, then. And I WON'T ask what you were doing on Earth," she gave in.

Did she know already?? Crap!!

She turned on the spot and realized too late that she didn't have a PAK, real OR fake, and the Irkens would know she was an imposter... SHIT!

Tak already knew.

She followed the alien imposter to the edge of the Smeetery town and behind a large boulder, looking good as new, as if it had never gone through a field of magma or crash landed anywhere, was her ship. It had been re-painted in the original colors and greeted her enthusiastically in her own voice.

She hopped into the cockpit and saw an unfamiliar looking black case and a few bags. They were definately human bags. This alien imposter was human trying to pass as Irken, was she?

She had a favor to repay. She may not be a very cheerful irken, but her job in life required that she be the way she was. Nonetheless, this human had done her a great favor, and Tak always repayed a favor.

She rummaged in a storage compartment the human most likely did not know about and fished it out. It was a thin metal bracelet with three flashing lights on it, and two buttons. A holo-touch projector was built into it as well, so she could program it to do whatever she liked. No need for more disguises; this was a customized, semi-solid hologram projector. Of the same type she had used on Earth. Her job was as an Elite and an Invader, not Renegade patrol and inquisitors. It was none of her concern whether or not this human was Irken.

"Here. For fixing my ship and bringing it back to Irk. Just push this button and choose what species you want to appear as, and it'll give you options. I have to go now," she said. The Irken imposter took the bracelet and put it on her wrist and immediately, several thin metal spikes buried themseles into her flesh, molding the metal to her very body. She cried out in surprise and pain as red human blood started to flow.

"Push that blue button there," Tak instructed her.

She pushed it. The hologram projector displayed its options. She touched the hologram word that said "Irken". So she could already read the Irken language, could she? Well, she didn't need HER help, then.

"Choose whatever you want, I'm leaving now," she said, and she closed the cockpit, shut her downloaded personality off and flew away.

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She decided very quickly that the bracelet given to her by Tak was going to be a real help later on. It had tons of features.

After choosing Irken as the disguise she wanted top project, there appeared a picture of two Irkens nude, so to speak. On the left, a male sign, on the right, female. She chose female. The image magnified and a tool palette appeared on the side. She clicked a random color and clicked the eyes. They changed color. This was easy! After she got the hang of it, she ended up with a brilliant disguise.

She now resembled a typical Irken female with curly antennae, light pink eyes (much as she despised pink, it was an uncommon shade of red so far as she'd seen), typical green skin and an outfit similar to the one Zim had given her. She merely added tails to the back, a different color shirt and voila! Instant Irken! She had even programmed the holographic disguise to have a PAK.

The best part was, she only need THINK about it if she wanteed to drop the disguise. Think about it again, and the disguise went back up. This was VERY cool.

Feeling loads more confident, she stepped back into the city, now ship-less and defenseless, but armed with a better disguise.

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Not a whole lot happened in this one, but it explained some things. If you want to ask me any querstions about any of my stories, add me to windows live messenger, or MSN by adding MetalheadDestroyerz at hotmail dot com. Ciao!

PLEASE REVIEW! 


	17. Dinner with Ralek

I am SO sorry for the delay with this one, but I had the file on my other computer (which has no monitor) and thus no way to get it off that and online... So I just decided to re-write it.

I hope you like this... after leaving off last chapter, Tak left, dumped all Rain's things out on the ground, gave her a holo-disguise bracelet and Rain programmed it for a pink-eyed Irken female. She's in the city... let's see what happens, shall we?

PLEASE REVIEW!

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Armed with a better disguise, she shouldered her bags and picked up her guitar case. She had strapped her bags together to optimize space and walked into the city.

The building that was the center of it all was so huge up close that she almost couldn't see where it ended or began. She peered closer at the letters on the front... An S...An M... an E and another E... and a T... another E... and R... and a Y... Smeetery?

Zim had said Smeets were what the Irkens called their children... smeets. So a smeetery would imply...

Either this was a huge building solely dedicated to sex and smeets or it was a laboratory where they cloned them or however smeets were created.

Somehow, she doubted an entire city would be built around a giant sex factory.

She looked around herself and noticed that no one was paying any attention to her. She looked like your average civilian Irken female, after all. Her dark red shirt tails reached the back of her calves and her pants appeared to be loose-fitting and black. In reality, beneath the holographic disguise, she wore her own human clothing, which was becoming very grubby, thin and worn out.

She needed some different clothes. Badly.

She shouldered her backpack beneath the PAK hologram and started walking in the direction of a different building. It had an open door from which bright yellwo light poured forth. She looked inside timidly. She stared.

The entire building was nothing but open space inside. Stacked on palletes, from floor to ceiling, with inches of hoverspae in between, were ships.

Personal cruisers like Zim's and Tak's bigger ships, all colores and sizes, all wrapped in what looked like plastic wrap. It was a warehouse for Irken ships!

"Can I help you?"

She jumped about a mile! In the process, she dropped her guitar case on her foot.

"OW!"

Hopping up and down, cradling her bruised foot in one hand, she began laughing. She must look ridiculous!

She looked up and saw a rather fat Irken with laid back antennae and a clipboard. He was looking rather astonished but not unhappy at her reaction to dropping something heavy on her foot. He wore a dark yellow uniform shirt with a bright pink collar and a pair of dark pants. His eyes were a dark green.

She stopped hopping, her foot stopped throbbing and she picked her guitar case back up again.

"Um... hi," she said, blushing beneath her disguise.

"Looking for a ship? Sorry I scared you," said the fat Irken.

Well, if she was here she may as well ask questions. She certainly didn't want to walk all over Irk.

"Actually, I don't have any monies... I was just wondering ... ow... how much a personal cruiser costs," she said, still somewhat distracted by her foot.

"Well, typically, the newer models are 4,000, but since I scared you so bad, I could save one for you for 2," said the fat Irken. He was giving her an odd look... was he _flirting_ with her??

Well, despite being fat and having stains all over his clothes, and despite the incredible stench rolling off him, she managed to smile back and say thanks.

She edged her way out of the warehouse and nearly dropped her guitar case on her other foot. Standing right in front of her, nearly eye to eye, leaning against a large, gleaming ship, was Ralek.

"Eep!"

She dropped her guitar case again, tried dodging it this time, and it landed on her foot anyway.

"Rrrrrrr..." she groaned. She grabbed her case again and looked up at Ralek. He was staring at her with amusement in his eyes. He unfolded his arms and made a motion to the outer hatch like he wanted her to follow him.

She looked behind her and saw the fat sales Irk standing there watching her and she made up her mind.

She followed the double agent on board his ship.

The ship was built a bit like a mini apartment. As far as she could tell, apart fromt its spacious hallways, there were only four rooms, a control room and what looked like a very small bridge.

He led herstraight into a room that resembled a sort of kitchen combination lounging room. There were counters and cupboard on one side and soft, plush-looking chairs on the other.

He let her sit on one of the chairs and for the first time since she'd got to Irk, she felt like going to sleep. The chair was plush and soft and squishy and she sank right into it.

Ralek disappeared into a storage closet-looking thing and emerged with a box-like instrument. Rain got a glimpse of the room behind him and saw a sort of miniature laboratory. It looked converted and probably hadn't been an original part of the ship.

"What are we doing? What is that?" she asked. She could smell something absolutely fantastic from what looked like a complicated stove and her stomach growled.

Ralek smiled and began running the box thing up and down her body.

"You can quit the disguise. You don't need it on this ship. I'm the only one here," he informed her. She thought about it and dropped the holo disguise.

"What is that?" she asked.

"It's monitoring your internal organs and telling me what foods won't make you sick," he replied. The box-thing seemed to give him his answer because he smiled grimly and tucked it into his PAK.

"How did you know it was me?" she asked.

Ralek laughed.

"Full of questions, aren't you? See this?" he asked. He tapped the thin wire attached to the side of his forehead. She looked; it stretched all the way to the back of his skull and had a flashing blue light on it.

"What about it?"

"It lets me see through holograms," he replied, smirking. His red-pink shaded eyes went half-lidded and he smiled. Despite the one missing antennae, he wwasn't half as bad-looking as the fat sale Irk outside.

She had all sorts of other questions but she didn't know how much she was allowed to ask in this case.

Ralek chuckled and stirred something in a pot on the "stove".

"You may as well ask all your questions or I'll never get a quiet moment," he said.

She got to her feet and stood in front of the counter. Their eyes met momentarily and she felt herself blush; she had been staring.

"What is this ship? Why are you helping me? And what are you doing?" she asked.

Ralek smiled again and began doling out some sort of thick, yellow-orange food into two seperate purple bowls. It smelled like a mixture of spices and some sort of meat.

"This is MY ship. I'm the captain and the crew. In my free time, off duty, I like joy riding. To answer your second question, I'm helping you because while I'm loyal enough to the Armada and the Tallest, there are some things that could use some tweaking, like their resistance to leet off-worlders onto the planet. You're an off-worlder. I want to help. Third, I'm making food. You are probably still hungry and as a matter of fact... so am I," he explained. He handed her a bowl and spoon and motioned to a small table with two chairs.

She carried the bowl, which was piping hot, over to the table and took a seat. Ralek sat opposite her and began slowly sipping spoonfulls of the yellow-orange mush-like stuff. She tried some. It was searing hot and had the texture of oatmeal and she grabbed her throat, her eyes watering.

"Gaah!"

Ralek smirked.

"It's hot," he said.

"You're not kidding, fuckthisishot..." she gasped.

"How is it, though? I've never cooked for anyone else," he asked honestly.

She considered that for a moment. It was very hot, sure, but it had a thick flavor to it that filled every one of her five senses. It was spiced and slightly seasoned and tasted vaguely like some sort of thick, extra creamy meat stew. She could see no meat chunks anywhere in it.

"Actually... really really good! What is this stuff?" she asked, impressed.

Ralek grinned, relieved and was obviously pleased. His dark red and black uniform was dusty from being outside the city all that day, but despite that he was very good company. He was a renegade scout. A scout who scouted for renegades, not a renegade who scouted. He had been secretly helping opff-worlders get onto the planet for years now and as well as joy riding, enjoyed cooking and reading and quiet places. He talked a lot about Irk and apparently knew all the hiding places, like caves and tunnels and abandoned buildings.

By the time their meal was finished, Ralek asked if shed like more. She didn't want to appear a glutton, so she declined. Ralek, however, wasn't fooled. He got up and spooned out some more for her.

"Thank you," she said.

By now it had cooled and tasted more than ever of spiced mash. She didn't know what it was or what was in it, but it was delicious.

"It's a personal recipe of mine. I'm happy to see someone besides me likes it," he laughed. She smiled.

She finished the food and her belly felt full and satisfied for once. She was fast gaining weight back after all the fatty alien food. Pretty soon, she would have to stop, she thought, smirking.

Ralek leaned back in his chair and sighed.

"So. What have you learned about the place so far? Like it?" he asked.

She shrugged.

"If I knew more about the lifestyles, I might fit in better. So far all I knwo is animal life and that there is no water," she admitted. Ralek stopped smiling and landed his hcair back on all four legs with a bang.

"What?" she thought out loud.

"Whatever you do, DON'T ask anyone for water around here. It's highly acidic to Irkens and only the top research facilities have it. Both legal and illegal," he said darkly.

Rain reached for her backpack and ulled out a water bottle. It was her second to last one, actually. By now it was warm but she was thirsty.

She took a good swallow of it, feeling a drop run down her chin and neck and Ralek watched her.

She capped the bottle once more and Ralek quirked one eyebrow.

"You can drink it?" he asked.

Rain got a pained expression on her face. She really hadn't thought this through as much as she'd thought.

"I _need_ it. All life on Earth needs it, it makes up more than half the chemical makeup. If I don't get it at least a few times every week, I could get sick and die," she admitted.

Ralek looked thoughtfull for a moment, his expression clouded.

"This isn't good... with the lab equipment I have, I could probably _make_ water for you, but if anyone catches me, I could be executed," he said thoughtfully.

"So are you a part of the military then?"

"Heck, no! I'm considered a civilian, I'm just part of the scout team! Most of the time I live like anyone else here," he replied, looking shocked.

"So what are the social classes like?" she asked.

Ralek scratched his head and looked out the window at the Smeetery outside.

"There are the smeetery workers, and they're considered pretty important. There's a big heireachal structure there and there are bosses. Other civilians might run restaurants like Slooshie's or work for smaller places off planet like Foodcourtia, but most of us live a lot like you humans," he explained.

"How do you know?" she asked suspiciously.

He smiled and pulled a picture out of his uniform pocket.

"Slooshie wanted me to give this to you, actually. There was one other human here at once point by the name of Walter Ericson. I hear he's related to you, somehow," he said.

Rain stared at a picture of an old man and a much younger-looking Slooshie. She had only ever seen tht face in old family photographs... Now she understood what Slooshie had said about her accent before...

Walter Ericson had been her great great grandfather.

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It's be longer but I have crap to do today... please review!!


	18. Temporary home

Hey, finally updating this one!!

Please review!!

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After they were both finished eating the wonderfully full-flavored mash, Ralek tossed their bowls into a machine that he said would wash them. It looked nothing like a dishwasher.

Ralek excused himself so he could go change and invited her to do some exploring while on his ship. She agreed and immediately went to explore the other rooms on board.

She peeked her head into the first one she came to and her jaw fell.

The walls were covered in pictures. Drawn, printed, photographed, even pencil-sketched. They all had a common theme, too.

Trees and grassy parks and forests and rivers, lakes and oceans, spaceships and stars, photographs of full-color galaxies, both swhirls and vortex-shaped ones and a suspicious looking one that could be a black hole. They were all rather beautiful and captivating. Was this what space travel could look like? She hadn't seen anything like that when she was following Zim out of the Milky Way.

Other than the pictures, the room was quite empty. There was a couch and a low-to-the-floor cot but aside from that, not much else. She guessed he spent his time in here drawing these pictures.

She went to the room across from the Drawing Room, as she decided to refer to it as, and saw that it was a sort of storage room, fuill of spare machine parts and hoses and gadgets she didn't have a name for. It smelled strongly of ancient oil and strange cleaning chemicals. It was making her dizzy fast, so she backed out of that one and reeled into the hallway again. The door closed.

There was another room she hadn't explored yet and she guessed it was Ralek's personal quarters. She decided to leave him be for the moment.

She went to the battle bridge and was met with a fantastic view of the Smeetery city. The sky was a dusky shade of purple-pink and the clouds were white. Far below, perhaps twenty feet down, she saw the Irkens going about their lives as usual.

The bridge, aside from the spacious window view, had several seats and a huge row of computer terminals. Blinking lights were everywhere and the main controls for the ship were far more complicated-looking than Tak's had been.

"What do you think?"

She turned and saw Ralek leaning against the doorway, freshly dressed in more comfortable-looking clothes, a dark purple shirt and a pair of black pants over non-uniform boots.

"This ship looks a lot like some sort of apartment," she remarked.

Ralek smiled and came into the room with her.

"It's my home. It's where I live," he replied.

She took a seat and ran her hands over one of the computer panels. The flat buttons were slick and shiny.

Ralek gently moved her fingers away from the console and she got to her feet and apologized.

"Those are the controls for just before takeoff," he informed her.

"Oh."

"If you want to know what Irk _really_ looks like...," he said, taking a seat himself and looking at a panel on the wall, "Yeah. Slooshie is on a break now. We can show you Irk for real."

Rain smiled and did her seat belt up. Ralek'shands flew over the console and she smiled again, impressed beyond her will. She liked a professional.

He pressed foreward on the handle next to his seat and her stomach lurched as she felt the ship rise. The groundview went from around 20 feet to Irk's surface to 50 feet in about five seconds.

"Hang on," he warned her, turning to grin evilly at her.

He punched the handle forward and the ship took off like a... well, like a spaceship. Like a rocket.

"Yaaaaaaahh!! YOU DID THAT ON PURPOSE!" she accused over the whine of the engines.

Ralek was laughing, she was trying not to throw up and before she knew it, they had slowed to almost a complete stop. hey were hovering over Slooshie's restaurant. Slooshie himself stood below them, staring at the ship and waving. His massive gut stretched his apron out and all his clothes were stained with food, as he was the last time she'd seen him.

Ralek pressed a button on the dash and grinned at her.

"Slooshie LOVES my tractor beam," he chuckled.

Sure enough, they both heard delighted, hearty laughter from the outer hatch and Slooshie walked onto the bridge. He saw Rain out of any disguise and the laughter died gradually.

"Aren't you that human girl from before?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Hmm. Not as strange-looking as Walter was, but not ugly like some other species. You'll do. I never introduced myself properly last time. Slooshie's the name," he said, holding out a hand. She tentatively took it. His hand was so big despite the fewer fingers that it swallowed hers. His skin was warm and fleshy but not sweaty like most fat people's. She liked him more the second time around.

"Rain. I think I like you better this time around. More.. friendly," she said unabashedly.

Both Ralek and Slooshie laughed at this and Slooshie dragged her into a side-hug.

"Where to, Ral?" he asked.

Ralek pushed a few more buttons and brought the ship higher up into the air.

"Thought I'd show Rain the best things about Irk, what do you say?"" he said.

She nodded, smiling, and Slooshie took the seat next to her, his humongous bulk taking up the entire seat and oozing off the sides. He smelled strongly of mooshminky.

"Hold on," said Ralek, and the ship was thrust forward at a ridiculous speed, slamming her back into her seat. She swore she could feel her cheeks blowing in the wind. Then the G-force compensators kicked in and she was able to sit up straight.

Irk's surface went by in a flash, blues and purples and silvers and animals all going by in a blur.

"Woooooooo!!"

Slooshie was having the time of his life. Rain began laughing and Ralek seemed pleased with their reactions. He slowed the ship as they came nearer and nearer to a series of huge cliffs and a few mountains.

"Most Irkens know about these mouthain ranges because they're so big but only we know all the good hiding spots," said Slooshie to her, pointing out of the viewscreen.

The cliffs were covered in some sort of greenish-blue mossy stuff and there was a wide river of some thick, beautiful silvery stuff flowing between the mouthain ranges that she thought looks like liquid mercury.

"This is... WOW," was all she could say. She saw several Horpikoks from the library on Tak's ship and they were even more beautiful from the cockpit of Ralek's ship than they had been in the hologram from Tak's. She spotted several small caves and waterfalls made of pure Mercury and trees of every colore imaginable... it was gorgeous.

"And the Armada wants to conquer other planets when yours looks like _this_??" she exclaimed, pointing out the window.

Ralek gave her an odd look then. Perhaps he thought her statement odd.

"You know, she has a fair point. There are about five billion Irkens on Irk, maybe 6 billion when we're all here and not in space somewhere. The planet is plenty big enough to accomodate us all. I don't really know why we feel the need to conquer other places. I mean, look at Vort. They used to be our allies, until the Tallest decided they wanted to move in. Now they hate us," he said, shrugging.

He steered the ship into a very pretty little clearing of trees. On the ground, clear space, above the ship, a thick canopy of beautiful blue-green trees with blackened trunks. The grass was thick and snarled but springy.

"Well? Shall we explore? I haven't had a chance to come out here for weeks," said Ralek.

Rain was more than willing. Before she stepped off the ship, however, she was sure to remember her hologram disguise. Up went the guise of a pretty, pink-eyed Irken female, wearing a light red tank top and shorts this time. This got strange loks from Slooshie especially.

"Do all you humans wear stuff like that?" he asked.

She shruged. "When it's hot, yeah," she replied.

She stepped off the ship and onto the alien grass. Ralek and Slooshie stepped out behind her. A light breeze flung her hair out behind her beneath the hologram. It broke through and whipped Ralek in the face and he sputtered and spat it out.

She dropped the hologram momentarily and examined her hair. It had grown out of control since she'd arrived on Irk; it was now nearly to the back of her knees. Every inch of it the normal dark blue.

"Ugh... it was only to my shoulders when I got here. How'd it grow so fast?" she complained out loud.

Ralek smirked and put a hand on the back of her head.

"Hold very very still," he instructed.

"Um... why?" she asked.

Slooshie chuckled from behind Ralek.

"Cause he'd hate to slice off your head!" he joked.

She heard a whirring noise and Ralek's hand around her hair. He pulled bck on it, pulling her head back with it, and suddenly she was free. Her head certainly felt lighter.

She fingered the ends of it and smirked. It now reached her shoulders again.

She looked back at Ralek and he smirked. He was holding a handheld laser-looking thingy in one hand and a great long chunk of her hair in the other.

"Thanks," she said, and she put up the hologram again.

She looked around her and took it all in. The colors, the sounds, the feel of the breeze on her face and the unfamiliar smell of the plants around her.

"Beautiful," sighed Ralek, smiling complacently.

She sighed and smiled, too.

"Yeah. It is."

Slooshie was silent for a moment before stripping his stained apron off and slipping out of his sweat-stained blue shirt. It revealed roll after roll of green flesh.

"Sorry 'bout that. I need to change anyway. New shift, new uniform," he excused himself, and he ducked back onto the ship and re emerged moments later with a fresh powder-blue shirt on.

He tossed her something and, startled, she caught it. It was an extremely large dark red shirt. The sleeves would probably hang on her like loose skin.

But she did need new clothes. Hers hadn't been changed in nearly three months and were falling apart. She pulled her grubby shirt off under the disguise of the hologram and pulled the clean one on. She'd been right; it hung on her like a drape.

She was grateful for it all the same. She hugged the fat restaurant manager in thanks and took him by surprise. He stiffened under her tough but eventually hugged her back. He was very jiggly... and squishy!

She let him go and ran ahead of the ship. This was the most fun she'd had since ditching Zim!

Speaking of Zim...

He was confused. Very much so.

He sat in his Voot cruiser, GIR by his side as was usual, and studied the sensors that showed the tracker on Rain as a blinking red dot on Irk's surface. It hadn't moved for several days. Had she died? Or had she found it and ditched it?

At any rate...

Rain sat leaned against a tree and sighed, a smile on her lips. Slooshie and Ralek joined her.

The sky was a dusky purple-red color. Slooshie's break had long since ended. He dismissed the fact and said he'd rather hang with them.

"So tell me about my great great gradfather," she invited him.

The fat Irken smiled and began reminiscing.

Walter had been a storyteller, and a very good one at that. Slooshie had liked him very much and had been sad to discover him dead. He had also been disappointed to learn that humans had such short lifespans by comparison.

Rain t old them a bit about herself and Earth as she knew it in the year 2008. The people, the ideals, the common morals, the fashions and the cities. Slooshie seemed fascinated and Ralek seemed preoccupied. He interrupted her halfway through desribing (in detail) the rocky mouthains with a question.

"There are a lot of plants there, right?"

She looked at him oddly.

"Well... yeah, thousands upon thousands, why?" she asked.

"Oh, nothing. Malak loves plants, thinks they're fascinating, is all. That guy... for an Irken with a programmed PAK like the rest of us, he should have been a botanist instead of a medic," Ralek replied.

A medic interested in plant life. Odd but interesting. She had a lot of grass and weeds in one of her bags from an old camping trip what seemed forever ago. Maybe she'd press them and make them into presents for the guy. Weeds and grass to humans, strange alien plant life to an alien.

Slooshie heaved himself to his feet and sighed.

"I better get back to the restaurant before someone blows it up or shuts me down. It was nice talking to you again, Ralek. And you, Rain," said Slooshie. He turned and got back into the ship.

Ralek got to his feet, stretched and scratched his side.

"You want to stay here for awhile? There's a pretty spacious cave behind that waterfall over there you could stay in if you do. Or you could stay on my ship for awhile if you like. I have a lot of books about Irken culture in my room if you're interested," he offered.

Rain stared and felt her cheeks heat up.

"I... have no idea what to say, to be honest. No one on Earth is even so nice to me. You sure you don't mind me staying on your ship for awhile?" she asked.

Ralek led the way back onto said ship and she followed.

"I'm positive, really no problem. You'll probably just spend a lot of time alone while I'm on duty. if you stay, I only have one rule. Don't flly the ship anywhere or under any circumstances," he said sternly.

She nodded, happy.

Looks like she had some new friends and a new temporary home away from Earth-sweet-home.

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PLEASE REVIEW!! To see pictures of ralek and slooshie, go to my deviantart account!! SaoirseRanekaera!


	19. Capture UPDATE

Haven't been paying attention to this one much.

Here's the scoop. Zim took the tracking device Sizz-Lorr put into his PAK onto the uniform shirt he gave Rain. Problem is, Rain took the undershirt off because it was too hot.

This is infuriating Zim to no end.

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Over the next few days, Zim checked the radar on the tracking device he'd planted on his human "jailer" and it never moved once.

He had removed the bracelet two days ago but the memory of all the nice things the girl had done for him kept nagging.

Behind him in the Voot, GIR sat silent and morose, which was most unlike him. He had his rubber piggy out but he wasn't playing with it.

"What;s wrong, GIR?" he spat the robot's name like it hurt him to say.

GIR looked up at him, his eyes uptilted and watery.

"I miss the slushie human," he whined.

Zim sighed. It was eating at him too.

He turned the Voot around and headed back to Irk. It would take a few days.

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Over the next few days, Rain got used to her strange new home. The unexpected seemed to pop up out of nowhere just as soon as she thought she was used to all the alien technology. The toaster apparently was voice activated. The stove didn't use fire or electricity- it used heat from the ship's engines. Sometimes the computer muttered behind her back, as if she couldn't hear. She swore the computer had a vendetta against aliens.

Some of the books Ralek gave her permission to read were absolutely the most interesting books in the universe and she spent many the hour sitting in the chair by his personal bed reading them. Ralek had explained that Irkens didn't need sleep because the cell chargers in their PAKs slept for them. He had disabled his cell charger and slept like any normal human. He said he found it relaxing.

His bedroom told a lot about him. There were pictures of the places on Irk that were most beautiful, including the shaded clearing with mercury waterfalls he and Slooshie had shown her before. There were pictures of him with other Irkens, doing things like laughing and cooking and goofing off. There was carpeting in here, a deep, plum purple color and there were a lot of books.

Irken civilian social structure didn't work too different than that of humans, except there wasn't as much mediocrity or hugging. They only had a few holidays and everybody celebrated. There was no religion but the ancient Irken ancestors were supposedly gods who created the universe. No one believed anymore. Technology had reigned supreme. Sex was possible but it was also strictly forbidden for the military. Reproduction, however, was impossible. The female's sperm receptors had long since become barren. Nowadays, the Irkens didn't reproduce. Machines called Harvest bots flew around collecting DNA cells and the cells were combined in a laboratory. There was no physical contact.

There were three classes of Irkens in the military, distinguishable from birth from one another. Normal smeets, no different than the civilian class, the slavedriver class and the soldier class. The slavedriver class were typically bigger than both the civilian-sized smeets and the soldier class. Tallests were simply revered as royalty because they were unique, one-of-a-kind mutations of the slavedriver class, that class which spawned everything from the slavedrivers (go figure) to the communications officers. As a result of these mutations, to handle the stresses of pumping blood through all the extra long limbs, their bodies became somewhat segmented.

When she wasn't reading, she was enjoying Ralek's excellent cooking or sleeping. Ralek was very good company and the two soon became friends. He enjoyed cooking, reading, relaxing in quiet, beautiful places, joy riding and having company over. Apprently, he liked playing host.

He introduced her to an Irken game using holograms- to play one used a small black disc to produce a shadowy hologram and the other person had to guess what it was supposed to be. The challenge in it was at first the holograms were only blobs. When guessed correctly, the image sharpened. Ralek showed her things no book would. Irkens in all their naked, aroused glory, for strictly experimental purpose, parts of Irk that were forbidden to the civilian classes, including offworlders, the tallests and the different kinds of ships. Rain, in turn, showed Ralek all her memories of Earth, the most beautiful places and the most wonderous things. Ralek was already in love with the planet and had promised that when she went home, he would go with her.

She had asked him why he would abandon his home planet.

"I like this life. There's nothing wrong with it, it's just... time for a change of scenery. I can ask for time off." was all he'd said.

She said nothing more on the matter.

He showed her more of Irk's surface and even took her on a short tour of the underground facilities, which were quite a bit larger. The planet seemed almost hollowed. The whole place was done in a myriad of dark reds, dark pinks, purples, blacks and silvers. Computers were a norm and metal tubing could be seen everywhere. The Irken Armada insignia had become commonplace. Irken smeets were everywhere and once she caught sight of Dax, the smeet with the lavender eyes she'd mnet on Band-aidia. She caught herself waving but remembered he wouldn't recognize her hologram disguise. She hastily turned her wave into a head-smoothing.

After touring the underground training facilities, Ralek took her back to his ship and fed her again. She looked like she had before she left Earth-- noodly-loooking but slightly chubby.

"I need to stop eating your cooking. It's gonna make me look like Slooshie," she joked.

Ralek laughed.

"If you keep eating HIS cooking, you'll DEFINITELY look like him!"

They both shared a good laugh.

While Ralek cleaned up after himself, Rain took a book from the inside of the shirt Slooshie had lent her. It had a big pocket down the inside front, for holding things, and she had taken to carrying a book, although it made her breast, while small, look off.

It was completely in Irken but Ralek had been teaching her (correctly, unlike Zim) and she now read through Irken almost as fast as she read through English.

This book was an alien fiction about adventure and suspense and romance. She was absolutely in love with it. It centered around an Irken on an alien planet who after dodging authorities, eventually fell in love with one of the aliens.

Ralek looked up from putting dishes in the washer and saw the book she was holding.

"That's really old, you know. Before the Armada, even. When writers still made money off of made up stories. It's one of my favorites," he admitted. She didn't miss the dark green blush that bloomed on his face.

Rain set the book down on the tabletop and got to her feet. She didn't know why; she just felt like standing. Perhaps it was all Ralek's heavy alien food.

She had a lot on her mind, not just everything she'd seen, done and eaten in the last week. The new friends she'd made. And everything she'd left behind. She felt tears come to her eyes and she hastily wiped them away.

Ralek seemed to notice, as he always did.

"Everything alright?" he asked.

She looked over at him and nodded, then returned her gaze to the window. At the moment, Ralek was orbiting Irk. It was a very large, blue-green marble-looking planet, surrounded by several purple and blue rings and a number of Irken ships surrounded it. This was what she had always wanted, to see and do things no one else could. Now here it all was. And no one back home would believe her.

She couldn't help it. She was homesick.

In realizing her dream to just KNOW, she had alienated herself from her entire species. She would never belong now.

Like it or not, she was more alien now than human.

"Deep thoughts?"

She looked around and was surprised to see Ralek at her side in front of the window, his medium-red eyes slightly concerned. Up this close, she could see her own reflection in them, like two large, plain red mirrors, not marred by iris or pupil. She noticed for the first time that Irkens weren't really ugly; in fact most of them (with the exception of the fat spaceship salesman on Irk) were positively cute.

About her height, rail-thin and concerned, he was too plain to be cute.

Feeling that nothing much mattered anymore, she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around his shoulder in a hug. He stiffened at first, but eventually returned the gesture, even letting her lay her head against his chest. His uniform was soft and his skin was smooth and hairless like all Irkens. He was warm and the first friendly gesture in a long time made her feel a little more human.

She leaned back from him to see a deep green blush on his face and a shy smile. His eyes conveyed confusion but not discomfort.

"What was that for?"

She looked past the glowing marbe planet called Irk, off into the deeper regions of space and bit her lip.

"Just homesick, I guess," she replied.

Ralek sighed and followed her gaze outside. He couldn't honestly say he knew how she felt. Irkens were programmed to have no feeling, morale or otherwise; as well as supress the modules in his PAK that made him programable, he had also modified the immoral ones. He would rather be his own Irken.

Even so, Irkens did not rely on family or a mother and father, or siblings. Such things were kept of the utmost secrecy.From birth independant, one did not get homesick. His emotions and thought were his own, his allegiance not entirely to the Empire on every subject matter. Nonetheless, her hug, the feel of her arms around him had been... warm and not unpleasant. He remembered the book he had told her about that she had been reading, about the Irken who fell in love with an alien. Accidentaly on Purpose, it was called. It had ended with the Empire finding out and destroying the Irken in question, and very graphically so. He shuddered. He didn't want to end up like that, but he feared he might be falling in love with the human.

He left her standing at the window and retreated to his personal room. He kneeled and swiped his arm under the bed and dragged a box out. One push of a button and the lid slid off revealing extra clothes, uniforms, weapons, PAK parts... essentially, everything needed for a dsiguise in case her hologram bracelet shorted. Those things were handy, but shorted easily.

He would be careful not to be caught harboring an alien. He would also make sure not to be probed by a control brain if he was indeed falling for her. If he was caught, then so be it, but he didn't want her to be captured. She would be destroyed or worse, experimented on.

He scooped up the PAK parts and a spare uniform that would fit her, boots, gloves and a transparent plastic harness meant for under the clothing. She would need it; PAK technology was probably not compatible with her chemical makeup. She could wear it like a backpack.

He brought everything out and set it on the table. The ship was on AUTOMATIC ORBIT, so he didn't need to man the controls. He felt her watching him as he assembled the PAK but didn't activate it. He handed her the articles of clothing and instructed her to put them on

"But the hologram bracelet Tak gave me still works. See?"

And she activated it, the guise of a pretty, pink-eyed irken girl replacing her human form. Her irken hologram was pretty, but unfamiliar. He wished she wouldn't use it.

"Those bracelets short out easily. These are in case it does," he replied.

"Oh."

She lifted Slooshie's enormous shirt off, revealing a much healthier body than before, along with a skimpy looking breast halter. He helped her pull on the plastic PAK harness and stood still as he hooked the device onto the back. For now, it was dead machinery.

She pulled on the pink undershirt and the dark red tunic over it, then pulled on the boots and gloves. She wore a full invader uniform. Her skin and face, however, was stil human... How to fix that...

"I have that green face paint," she suggested.

He waved it away for a moment, thinking. The pipe cleaner antennae headband she used before would have to do for now. Some contact lenses. Forget the face paint, it would fool no one. Most irkens were idiots, no one would take into account one peach-colored face among the green.

He smiled and it was at that moment that the ship was slammed full force, ripping a nine foot hole into the side hull. Everything not bolted down was immediately sucked into the vacuum of space, including the romance book she had been reading.

By instinct, Ralek grabbed hold of Rain as both their bodies were lifted up by the antigravity. The ship was hailed through the inercom system and she sounded annoyed.

"Report your rank and mission! No unidentified ships allowed in orbit at this time!"

Ralek couldn't move without letting go of Rain or the table he was holding on to. He exended a spider leg from his PAK and punched the reply pad.

"Ralek of Irk Section C-192! Designation Scout! Civilian class B!" he screamed over the soundless, yet deafening sound of the air being sucked out. His squeedilyspooch was screaming for air. Beside him, through her mass of dark blue hair, Rain's eyes were half lidded and her lips had turned a bruised purple-blue color. She was unconcious.

"I detect a second unauthorized life form aboard your ship. A female. Your rank, Unidentified female!" barked the angry irken female over the intercom. The ship's power was shutting down. The air was almost gone. He activated his PAK's atmospheric processor and he could breath fine. Rain, however...

"You punched a hole in my ship!! The air is gone and her PAK is damaged! She's unconcious!!" he snapped. He was angry.

"My name is Chavon! I am an Irken Elite Commander and by the order of the Almighty Tallest and the Irken Elite, I demand that you leave this airspace and take your passenger with you!" barked the voice. A face appeared on the viewscreen, flickering in the power failure. The Elite commander might be pretty if her bright yellow eyes weren't narrowed and her face twisted in anger. How a yellow-eyed defect got to be Elite commander was beyond him.

He severed all channels of communication with his spider leg and activated emergency power for the ship. Nanobots immediately began the arduous task of sealing the gaping hole in the ship's hull and air slowly began to filter back through. Gravity returned to normal and he planted both his fee firmly on the floor. Rain's limb body struck the floor with a meaty THUD. She was still unconcious.

He steered his ship back to Earth's surface and quicly hid it near the mercury waterfalls and blue-green grees he and Slooshie had shown Rain before.

He had no idea how the human body worked or how to bring one out of what Irkens called "Huwaiil", the semi-aware state one declined into just before the ten minute lifeclock was up.

There was nothing for it.

With no other ideas, he activated the PAK.

There was an electronic voice that said "ACTIVATING" and two tiny metal probes jammed themselves into her spinal cord. Her entire torso was jolted, making her arms flop lifelessly. Bright red blood seeped out onto the grass from the shirt.

He eyes flew open but she began to jerk, as if being electrocuted.

Panicked, he attempted to shut the PAK off, but it electrocuted him, too. He must not have put it together right!

Spider legs, saw blades, lasers and even nuts and bolts started shooting out of the PAK she now wore on her back and she started to scream. Loud, ear-piercing shrieks that could probably be heard for miles around. If she wasn't quiet, she could attract attention.

He tried using his own spider leg attachments to shut the PAK down but a penetrating saw blade sawed them off. There was no pain.

"Rain, be quiet!! Someone will find you!!" he tried shushing her.  
The PAK began integrating itself into her subconcious and then she really started to scream. Blood from her torn throat started running down her chin.

He saw a ship in the distance.

"Rain, I'm serious. If we don't get out of here now, you'll be captuerd! Fight it!" he urged her.

"Hwwaaaaaiiii... krrrraaaaaaarrgg... TAAAAIIIIIIVVVVV!!" she shrieked. More blood bubbled down her chin. If she kept up like that, she would lose her voice for good.

But the PAK was obviously downloading things. She was speaking Irken, something he hadn't yet taught her to do. She was saying she couldn't.

"Yes you can!! Fight the PAK, you're stronger than it!" he urged her in English.

"No...Variii... what... this... TORTU NEN KABAI HUAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!" she started screaming in a mixture of english and Irken.

More Irken words like "no", "why" and "stop" passed her lips and her voice gave out entirely.

By that time, his fellow scouts were within hearing range. He could make out the face of Lithium, an old friend but hardcore Tallest supporter. A spasm of horror and confusion passed over her face and her dark red eyes narrowed.

"You and you, grab the rogue scout, you take that screaming THING on the ground", he ordered.

Ralek immediately sought about saving his own skin.

"I parked my ship here when I spotted it! I was ABOUT to kick her off the planet, but she obviously stole a pAK and it isn't designed for her inferior FILTHY chemistry," he lied. It pained him to say these things about his friend, but it was necessary if he was to rescue her later.

The look on her face and in her green eyes, the tears wholly unrelated to the pain of a pAK infusion through... tore him apart. He tried wiping all emotion off his face and look impassive.

"Lithium stared hard at him for a moment before she barked a second set of commands. Four scouts jerked Rain to her feet. Her antennae headband fell off and blood dribbled out of her mouth in a lazy drool.

"Red blood? RED? yuck," complained one very young scout.

Ralek tried to ignore her tears as she was gagged, tied and taken away, dragged through the dirt under the baleful orange skies... but found he couldn't keep his own tears away.

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EFFIN FINALLY!!

GThis chappy has been on my desktop for MONTHS and I just finished it. Well, rain has been discovered. What'll happen next??

Dun dun DUUUN!! Warning in next chapter for minor character death!! it's an OC, dont worry. 


	20. NOONE but ZIM do I love!

I know I've been neglecting Zim and his mighty ZIMness!! So here I go! Lookit me go! Weeeeeeeeeeeee!!

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The moment Zim landed on Irk's surface, he heard the screams.

GIR's eyes lit up and the little robot chucked his slurpee at Zim's forehead and ran off.

"That HORRIBLE little ROBOT!" he screamed, wiping flavored ice off his face.

"SLUSHIE HUMAN'S IN TROUBLE!!" he screamed through his holocommunicator.

Zim's antennae perked up as yet another scream wreaked hell on his sensory organs.

He climbed back into the Voot and began tracking the audio waves. They were coming in from just outside the central city, in a clearing he had only seen in passing. He didn't like watching the mercury falls. They made him dizzy.

He flew that way.

Just as he approached the area, he saw the human gagged, being dragged through the dirt. GIR was watching from a distance, tears streaming down his little metal face. There was an unfamiliar ship, an ourdated apartment ship. A tall, gangly irken stood there, his eyes watery with tears. Zim recognized the Scout uniform. In a moment, he knew what had happened.

Just not why she had been screaming.

GIR obviously felt the same way, too, because he immediately attacked the scout.

Zim decided to follow the other scouts, to wherever they may take the human Rain. GIR could be someone else's headache for once.

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Ralek was wholly unprepared for what happened next.

What looked like an Invader's SIR unit jumped onto his head and began gumming his face, getting robot drool all over his eyes and neck. A high pitched humming accompanied it. Then he realized the robot was wheezing.

"Arck!! Get off me!!" he growled. He tried prying the little thing off with his bare hands, but a saw blade popped out and he ended up having to use his PAK. He held the struggling SIR unit at arm's length (PAK arm's length, the thing could stretch its arms) and studied it more closely. Its eyes glowed a fierce bright blue and it had no distinguishing marks of any kind. Either it was defective or it belonged to an Invader. At any rate, if a civilian class like him were caught with an Invader's property, there could be heavy fines to pay.

"You hurt da slushie human!" he screamed so loud his fuses might blow.

"I as good as did," he replied dejectedly.

The robot stopped struggling and Ralek set it down.

"She gonna be okaaaaaaaay?" he asked.

Ralek blinked. It was defective, alright.

"I hope so."

He hoped he hadn't just sealed her doom.

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Why had he said those things? Why was he so distant? One minute he had been her only friend and just then he had abandoned her!! Called her filthy! Had he been lying the whole time? Meaning to turn her in all along?

She was confused and hurt and shaken. The PAK on her back dug itself deeper and deeper into her body the more she was dragged, making her twitch. Her throat felt as if it were on fire and her neck and chest were sticky with blood from whatever she'd ruptured while screaming. It hurt to breath now.

They had her ankles trussed up like you would a dead deer and were dragging her through the dirt and rocks, her wrists tied to each other. The gag in her mouth tasted like machine lubricant and she wanted to throw up. Above her, the twin suns of Irk blinded her, baking the ground she was being dragged on. She felt her skin begin to sunburn.

She craned her neck to look up and saw she was being dragged through the metal-grated streets of the central Irken city. Now her flesh was being ripped up by the sharpened metal points jutting out of the ground. Mercifully, they stopped for a moment and she had an instant in which she could begin to cry again from the pain.

Her captors began speaking in Irken to someone else and with the alien technology fused to her spine, she could understand it.

"Stop tearing it apart, the Tallest want the scientists to run testing on it! They can't do it if you kill it before you gets there!"

"Yes, sir."

"And take that filthy rag out of its mouth. I wouldn't give that to a dog!"

"Yes, sir."

Her gag was removed and she took the opportunity to spit saliva, dirt and blood out onto the ground.

The others groaned, sickened. She caught sight of an official looking Irken, heavily armed with huge purple shoulders and a shock stick taser looking thing. He had a stern expression but gentle purple eyes.

Her captors all looked at her as if she were a bug. She glared right back, ignoring her pain for the time being. She would NOT show weakness. She matched the slavedriver's calm gaze with the fiercest, most hurt one she could manage.

No one told the Irkens what human facial expressions meant.

"Carry on scouts," said the slavedriver.

And someone grabbed the rope binding her hands, cut the rope binding her feet and marched her in tow. They led her through crowds of Irkens, all who stopped to either stare or jeer at her. Some threw insults; others threw small rocks. She looked at them all with pain in her eyes; She had only wanted to come here to learn. Why were they all being so mean about it? It was a stupid rule anyway, no offworlders. Stupid and selfish.

Someone jerked her on the rope, causing her to stumble and fall to her knees without her hands to catch herself. The metal grating dug deep into her flesh and she cried out in pain.

Someone hoisted her up again, not being at all gentle.

"Keep _moving_," growled a voice. She looked up to see the irken female that had looked surprised to see Ralek. She didn't know her name.

Rain glared as hatefully as she could. Talking would just hurt her throat more.

The scouts led her through the crowd and up to a giant, rounded purple building with lots of reinforced glass and shoved her roughly inside.

She was met with eighteen pairs of eyes that glowed red, green, yellow and purple in the darkkness. Out of the shadows stepped eight aliens. Four of them were Irken; the rest were about the same size, with gray skin and horns. They all wore long robes.

Zim watched in horror from his ship, where he had tapped into the many security cameras, as the human who had been so nice to him on Earth was dragged by the rope, lashed to a table and forcibly restrained until she stopped screaming.

Maybe GIR had had the right idea from the start.

He flew his Voot back towards the mercury falls and the unfamiliar apartment ship.

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PLEASE REVIEW!!


	21. Not human anymore

Jumping right into it here. Lithium makes one more appearance! As does my BESTEST FRIEND EVAR cause I couldn't resist putting her in this story, too LOVEYA CRAZY BRIT SISSY WOLF!!

I know, you won't get that, but she will. Se la vi!

REVIEW OR ELSE!! XD

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"Put her under strict observation. Make sure no one comes in without authorization and no one leaves without signing the screen. Understood?"

"Yes, Commander."

"I'll want full toxicology and neurological reports, as well as any prenatal inconsistencies if anything goes wrong. I'm stepping out for a snack."

"Yes, ma'am."

The Commander left.

The officer she was speaking to turned towards the center of the dimly lit room he was in at the figure on the table there. The alien lay there, bare of clothing and jewelry and disguise, covered only by a towel. No one had wanted to see the hairy parts of her body.

In truth, the officer didn't like this, experimenting and running tests on non-irkens. It was disgusting and it was base violation. There were no disguises about it, it was just nasty. If he wanted to keep his job and not be labeled a defect, he just did his job.

Floating screens and monitors surrounded the heavily-wired medical cot the alien lay on, displaying everything from information about her chemical makeup, her DNA strands and her blood flow and organ systems. She had been injected with anesthetic but her system was too primitive to deal with the advanced ether; it had knocked her out.

Her DNA had been compared to every single alien blood cell on record and had been found to be compatible with a surprising number of them, including Irken; they had injected her with it and the cells were multiplying rapidly already. A separate monitor told as much; when Irkens had still bred like normal, they had given birth to litters.

Shaking his head in disgust, he went back to monitoring the levels of irken hormones being pumped into her system.

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Zim parked the Voot in a small stand of bushes a few fee away from the much larger apartment ship that was still there. He heard a strange, weepy sound.

"Hm..."

He peered around the trunk of a _Kelair _tree and saw the boarding ramp extended to the ground and the tall, thin irken with the plain red eyes sitting there with his head resting on his knees. The weepy sound was coming from him. GIR sat next to him, mindlessly drooling all over a taco.

Zim stepped out from behind the tree and pulled a ray gin from his PAK, ready to fight.

"Who are you, soldier!" he demanded.

The scout stopped crying abruptly and got to his feet, his one intact antenna straight up in surprise and outrage. The scout pulled his own weapon from his own PAK and they stood off.

"My name is Ralek. I'm a Scout, civilian class," he replied.

Zim began laughing. Civilian class scouts were the lowest!

"HA! Civilian class scout?? The tallest should have done away with your kind a long time ago! Tell me, where's the human being taken?" he demanded.

Ralek was immediately suspicious. He didn't trust this arrogant-looking, noisy, demanding little Irken. What did he know about Rain and what she was??

"I'm not telling you, ZIM," he spat. He thought he had recognized the egomaniac. Zim, the infamous free-roaming defective "Invader". Well, no way he would let him touch Rain. He knew where she had probably been taken; either the incinerator or the laboratories. Nothing so irken had ever been seen on Irk that wasn't Irken; she had probably been taken for experimentation.

"GIR! GET over here!" Zim screamed.

The little robot jumped up and joined Zim's side. So the defective robot belonged to the defective irken. Typical of the Tallest.

Ralek made up his mind right then that he would ditch this defect and go rescue Rain on his own, his banishment be damned. If the Armada got wind of his "betrayal", he would be exiled or executed. He didn't care. He had gotten her into this mess and he intended to get her out.

"Where're YOU going??" Zim demanded bossily.

Ralek glared at him and boarded his ship again. He pressed a button he hardly ever pushed; a button that made the ship more streamlined. He only used it when he needed to go fast.

Beside the cockpit window, he saw Zim's tiny little Voot cruiser rise up beside him. He punched up a communication channel and told him to get lost.

"Oh, I shall get lost! After I go rescue my jailer! HA!"

And he took off.

Confused and annoyed, Ralek smirked to himself and punched his ship to maximum burn. He went from 0 to 500 in less than three seconds.

"YAAAAAh!" he screamed as he was thrown backwards. He climbed to his feet and manned he control in time to see Zim being left in the dust.

"AAAAhahahahahaha!!" he began laughing hysterically. He LOVED competition... ESPECIALLY when a friend's life was possibly on the line. It gave him a boost that nothing else did. If someone thought him a bit sick for it, oh well.

"Take THAT, Zim!!"

It occurred to him right then that in a way, HE was a defect too. Maybe not as defective as Zim but he was opinionated and had willingly tampered with his own PAK. He didn't like the Tallests and he was in love with a non-irken. At that moment, he wouldn't mind being banished.

At any rate, the laboratory was just up ahead. He killed his speed and began to descend, planning to land on the roof. He was immediately hailed.

An ugly face appeared on his viewscreen. He didn't know who it was, but it was Vortian and he looked pissed.

"Sate your intent."

"I plan on overthrowing all of you and rescuing my friend," he said matter-of-factly. He pressed his forefinger upside down on his forehead and placed his thumb over his antennae in a display of rebellion and cut the communication device. The gesture was of ill-intent and extremely rude. What Rain might call the "fuck you" of the Irk home planet. Thinking of Rain and what he had done to her made him sad, so he quit thinking about what she would say and began thinking of what she would do.

She would mow these morons down, is what she would do, he thought grimly.

He disliked fighting, but it was what his PAK had him programmed to do... He opened his PAK and jerked a single wire and immediately felt the Armada's programming kick in. He wanted to fight. This was nothing more than another mission. Pain and failure were not factors.

He saw two armed guards in lab coats by the doors leading down into the building. Using his infrared goggles from his PAK, he could see more heat signatures. There were two more guarding the bottom of the stairwell.

He jumped out of his ship and immediately stunned the first two with well-aimed blows to the backs of their necks. Their PAKs would reactivate them before long, so he moved on his way.

He met the other two guards at the bottom, snuck up behind them and jammed electricity-blocking devices into their PAKs. They were immediately incapacitated and would probably (most likely) die. Living on Irk and being a factor of the Armada, a soldier had no qualms over killing. It was life.

He was in a hallway, a T unction. He activated his heat goggles again and immediately saw two figures far off in the distance, one which was very bright and one which was dim and laying down. It must be her.

He pushed the goggles back up on his head and began jogging towards the two heat signatures. The hallway was lined with mint-green tiles and the harsh lights made everything look sterile. There doors on his left and right and from some of them came horrible noises. He made his true self ignore them. On the outside, perfect soldier. On the inside, he was crying. This place made him feel bad.

No time for second thoughts now, His PAK programming told him. Complete your mission.

But what WAS his mission? Rescue his friend? His alien friend? The one he was falling in love with, slowly but surely? That wasn't a mission the Armada would give.

His PAK began spitting sparks and it made him pause long enough to disengage it. It was malfunctioning. His modifications and his subconscious rising up below the programming to fight it was making it go haywire.

Screw it.

He shut off everything except the most basic life support system and tried his best to ignore the squirmy feeling in his squeedilyspooch at being back in this place.

Zim watched him and silently followed him. He was fooling with his own PAK, rescuing a human FILTHY and breaking just about every Armada rule there was! This scout was a defect!

He had left GIR in the Voot. It was necessary to make as little noise as possible.

He promptly ran into a trashcan, spilling all its contents and making a very loud noise.

"D'OW! Who put that there?!"

He clapped his hands over his mouth and quickly ran and hid.

Ralek heard and spun around, on edge. It had sounded like Zim, and a trashcan was tipped over. So the little monster was following him.

Fine.

Ralek grabbed a ray gun from his PAK, spun around, dropped to his knees and fired without thinking.

Chunks of wall and plaster dust filled the air as his shots went astray but there was some satisfaction. Zim gave a loud shout of pain and small flecks of bright green blood littered the debris.

Satisfied, Ralek continued on his way.

He put his heat goggles back on again and again found the two signatures he was looking for.

They were behind the door to his right.

He kicked it open and an alarm went off, hurting his head. His antennae cringed in annoyance.

He saw the irken inside push a button calmly and the alarm went off.

He pushed a button and spoke into a microphone.

"False alarm!" he announced over an intercom system.

Ralek was confused.

"If you've come to save the girl, you're too late. She's already been experimented with. If you want to get her out of here, I'll help. But you never saw me," said the scientist. He had pink eyes and darker-than-normal skin. It was clear that he was somewhat decent.

Ralek ignored him for the time being and ran to the table in the middle of the room. He nearly cried.

Most f Rain's hair had been shaved off in favor of tiny head probes. One on particular, resembling his own, actually went into her skull, though what it was for was beyond him. She was completely naked, save for a towel over her lower extremities and more wires and needles were stuck into her flesh. Her every bodily function was being carefully monitored. She looked terrible.

_I did this_.

He felt the tears coming on and fought them down. Not here. No way.

He knelt down and stared into her face. Her eyes were half-lidded; she was drugged and veeeeerrry heavily.

Nonetheless, her green eyes rolled up into her skull and she seemed to realize he was there. Her eyebrows knitted.

"Ralek..." she muttered.

"Yes, it's me. I'm here, you're leaving this place now," he replied, and he immediately began pulling needles from her skin. Droplets of bright red blood bloomed forth from the needle holes but other than that, not much happened. She lay in her halfway fetal position and didn't twitch.

The scientist watched from afar as the defective scout struggled to et all the probes out of the alien's pink body. There was one in particular that would have to be done by him.

He approached the table and began cutting off the supply of irken hormones to a thicker-than-usual tube connected to the girl's spinal cord. He had to be careful or he would paralyze her.

He waited until the hose was empty then as quick as he could, he jerked it out of her.

She jumped and let out a sharp squeal of pain and otherwise lay still.

Ralek cut off the sedative feed and ripped it out of her arm. Now all that remained was the probe in her skull. He went to remove it, but the scientist held him back sharply.

"If you remove that, she dies," he said.

Ralek paused suspiciously.

"What does it do?" he asked.

"Do? There are many models of this probe. Yours is designed to see through holograms. Hers was designed for minor healing. Scrapes and bruises, cuts and dismemberment and things. They had to put it in when the PAK you unwittingly integrated her with began to do things to her. She hasn't said one word since it was put in," he said sadly, looking down at her.

Ralek's heart ached just then. What had he done to her... this was all his fault. He looked around and saw the PAK in question. It lay on a table, disassembled, destroyed, smashed to pieces.

"Who did that?" he asked.

The scientist perked one of his antennae in a "what, you don't know?" expression and pointed to Rain.

Ralek leaned down again and got right close to her face. He whispered her name.

"Come on. Can you walk? I'm taking you out of here," he said.

Rain pulled away and refused to look at him.

"Go away. You've done enough."

Her words cut him like no self doubt could.

"I said those things back there so they wouldn't take me too, so I could make a plan and save you, Rain. I didn't mean any of it, you know I didn't," he tried explaining.

Rain was silent for a moment. As they watched, the needle marks, bruises, cuts and abrasions from her beatings began to disappear. Her head probe was doing its job for the very first time.

"See, this probe tells her brain that no matter how much pain she's in, she isn't hurt. It then delivers very small quantities of antibodies and her brain automatically sends new cells down the nervous system to replace damaged ones. I designed it myself," said the scientist proudly.

Ralek gave him one of his famous "are you SERIOUS" looks and turned back to Rain. He gently placed a hand against her cheek and turned her head to look at him. The sedatives were wearing off. She was becoming more alert now. It was the first time he'd really touched her, he realized. Her skin felt warm even through his glove, and he could tell it was very smooth.

Her eyes somehow became clouded and she frowned at him. A tear ran down her cheek.

""I don't feel very good," she said. Her voice quavered with the promise of tears. She clutched her stomach, which was only slightly more chubby than it had been. It was unnoticeable.

"That would be the sudden lack of irken hormones. Your young are displeased with that," pointed out the scientist.

They were both silent. Then they both cried out.

"Young?!"

"What did you DO to me?!"

Rain somehow found the strength to sit up on the table. Her breasts and her skin were covered in small, upraised bumps and the towel in her lap did not hide the very small bulge. She got it quicker than the scout did.

"You impregnated me with irken DNA," she said dully.

From where he was watching, Zim clapped a hand over his mouth to keep himself from retching. Superior Irken DNA in the body of a filthy human pig smelly?? RIDICULOUS! The Tallest would NEVER stand for this!

But still... now that he knew she was alright (the scout seemed to have a liking for her) he could go about his business of taking over the filthy Earth as usual.

He snuck out, nursing a gash in his arm.

Ralek walked away from the table and rummaged around in a nearby closet for anything she could cover herself with. He found a spare scientist robe and her old undergarnments. Her fake invader uniform had been ruined, torn and filthy. He wondered what they had put her through.

He handed Rain the clothes but she just held them and refused to look at him. Silent tears streamed down her face.

"I'm not human anymore. I don't _feel_ human anymore... I want to go home," she said hollowly.

Ralek felt a tear run down his face. All of a sudden all he wanted to do was send her home, back to earth, make her feel human again, embrace her, help her... anything but hurt her again.

He touched her face again and made her look at him. Her green eyes were watery but clear. The healing probe in her skull really did wonders; she was miserable but she looked healthy. She narrowed her eyes at him and tried to look away, but something compelled him to hold her face firm.

"I'm sorry. I mean it. I didn't mean all those things I sad and stuff, I... just needed to be sure I could stay free to come back for you," he said.

She looked him in the eye and he knew she could see herself reflected in them. He saw himself in her own eyes; a faint green-skinned, red-eyed alien reflected over clear whites, deep green and darkest black pupil. Their eyes were very different, sure, but both had reflections. Irken and human, not so different.

The scientist could guess at what would happen, and smiling to himself, he left the two alone in the room. It was nice to know that despite the differences and the horrific experiments, two people could still fall in love.

He was wholly unprepared for what she did next.

She closed the distance between them and pressed her lips against his in a fierce kiss.

Her lips were definitely not irken but infinitely more soft than they looked. He smiled to himself when he remembered the reason she had bribed Zim to take her to Irk in the first place; to learn.

He decided to teach her an irken kiss.

He snaked his pointed, earthworm-like tongue between her lips and extended it but no so much that he gagged her. To his surprise, she returned the kiss wholeheartedly. Her tongue was nowhere near as long as his was nor did it have the same range of movement but it wasn't unpleasant.

He broke the kiss and she kissed his cheek. She shakily got to her feet and began dressing herself. He had to help her with the robe- it consisted of two pieces.

He couldn't believe he had just kissed her. A non-irken, a human, a friend... a lover?

_Get a grip on yourself, ralek. _He shook the thought out of his head and smiled at her. She reached up and touched her half-shaven head and she blanched.

"My hair... they shaved it... those dirty mother_fuckers_," she growled.

Ralek grinned.

"Come on. Let's get you home, then. By the time we get there, it'll have grown back," he urged her.

The smile she returned made his heart swell and it didn't matter anymore. He would leave for Earth as soon as was possible and he would go with her and stay there. No more Irk, no more Armada, no more torturing the hapless off-worlders, no more Tallest, just no more nothing. Earth would be his home. And Rain would be his companion.

Ralek took Rain by the hand and helped her outside. He nodded to the dark-skinned scientist and the scientist nodded back.

"I'll give you ten minutes to get back in your ship and get away before I sound an alarm," he whispered, and he retreated back into the room.

Ralek led her up to the roof where his ship was but halfway up the stairs, she stumbled and fell. Ralek scooped her up awkwardly and carried her the rest of the way. For her size, she was heavy.

He managed to get her to the ship when an alarm pierced his antennae. Lights mounted on steel beams began flashing red and purple and the need to hurry intensified.

"INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT! CODE ORANGE! BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR A ROGUE SCOUT WITH A CAPTIVE PRISONER!"

"That scientist wasn't as nice as he claimed to be..." muttered Ralek.

He carried his friend, his crush, his companion, on board his ship and prepared to take off again, and this time, he would aim for the stars beyond Irk...

Forever.

Forever was going to have to wait, as he saw shortly after he got above tree level.

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CLIFFIE!! PLEASE REVIEW!!


	22. Running away

Since everyone has been BEGGING me to update this fic, FINALLY, I get around to it!(yes, yellow and blue, I'm talking about YOU) hahahah UPDATE BP ASAP! I wanna get my sadness over with !

Ralek has just kidnapped Rain from the lab and gotten her into the ship, but a surprise waits for them there ^_^

PLEASE REVIEW!

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At least a dozen irken spittle runners and defense ships hovered in the air just above the lab.

Rain was still getting over the shock of learning she was a lab rat carrying children and the anesthetic and she lay on the floor behind him.

"Hold on, Rain,." he warned her. He felt her close her hand limply around his lower leg and he accelerated, full speed. He went from a dead hover to an impressive 1K an hour in a second. It was impressive because apartment ships like this usually only came with the maximum of 700 miles in 3 seconds; he had toyed with it.

The ship accelerated so fast that he stumbled and fell on his backside. There was a sharp cry of pain as Rain was thrown back into the wall.

"Rain!?" he cried out. If he had accidentally hurt her any more than he already had, he would die. He realized in that moment of panic and danger that she was more than just a friend; he really did love her.

And realizing that put him at-odds. He was more distractable. And he had more to lose now.

He left the control for just a split second and helped her up with his PAK legs. She leaned heavily on his side and he braced his feet apart to deal with the extra weight. The good news was his ship had overshot the ships after them and blown right into Irk's outermost atmosphere.

Ralek quickly killed the thrusters and brought the ship around in a sharp about-face.

They were following him.

Swearing in Irken, Ralek pushed his already-tired ship to hyper speed and prepared to lose them in space.

He let it warm up first and turned to Rain. Her face was inches away, her eyes still at half-mast. He brushed her chin with his fingers and smiled. An unfamiliar feeling was staking him over... his heart... despite the danger they were in, he was happy.

She rolled her eyes up to look at him and he _thought_ she tried to smile... but then he remembered she was still probably angry at him and he figured it was wishful thinking on his part.

"If I could see straight yet, I'd hit you," she mumbled.

He laughed. It was better than nothing!

His ships' engines were humming now. He looked in the mirrors; the irken chasers were practically on top of him! How had they snuck up so fast?

"Hold on to me," he warned Rain.

She clung to his waist as tightly as she could and he pushed the hyper speed lever down full-force. No telling where they'd end up now.

Behind him, the ships all began to panic and turn around, but one acted too late; Ralek's ship's hyper speed drive was fully activated now and the engines spat out a huge lick of flame as the ship was flung into space 80 times faster than the speed of sound. The ship behind him was instantly incinerated.

So there it was. He was now not only a rogue and a deserter but a murderer as well. He was as good as exiled from Irk for good.

He slowed the engines and set the ship to hover. There were no planets nearby and thus no gravitational pulls, so hovering was perfect O.K.

He turned to Rain and began leading her to his quarters. He pressed his hand against the scanner pad and it opened for him.

"Lie down and rest," he said gently.

For once, she didn't argue with a direct order, but lay down on his bed as instructed. He covered her up, left the room and sighed. Time to start his life as an outcast.

There was a sudden noise over the loudspeakers. Someone was hailing him? How? There wasn't a ship in sight!

He answered the call and was shocked to see the face of a smeet with light purple eyes and an Elite- in-training uniform on.

"Ralek? Sir? My name's Dax, and I know I'm just a smeet, but-"

"-Get off the communication channel, little smeet! What are you even doing outside??" he interrupted. He wasn't worried about the smeet; he was worried that the activity of the communications channel would attract unwanted attention. Such things were traceable.

"I know!! But you have that girl! Rain! I met her once! I wanna help!" he cried, his purple eyes wide and panicky.

Ralek got skeptical. Rain had never mentioned meeting a smeet before, or Dax. He could have been forced to do this. But then again, he might not have.

"Where are you, smeet?" he asked.

"Right behind you! I wanna come with you guys! Irk is boring!" he complained. His voice was high pitched and squeaky and smeet-like.

Ralek sighed.

"Fine, then, get on board, but I'm not going back," he gave in.

He saw a Voot runner cruise up behind him, tiny in comparison, and latch onto the docking bay. There was a whooshing sound as the vacuum seal protected the air supply and Dax the Smeet Elite-in-training stepped off his ship, which had no doubt been stolen from Irk's surface.

Dax was only about a foot tall, with very light purple eyes and the typical baby antennae. His eyes were worried at the moment, though.

"Where is she? I wanna help, too!" he insisted.

Ralek stood and looked down at him, one eyebrow raised higher than the other in an expression of "are you kidding".

"You'll be labeled a defect and probably executed," he said.

Dax activated his spider legs and got in Ralek's face. Light pruple met plain red.

"I don't care! I want to help! She seemed nice when I met her and even Medic Malak thinks so!" he insisted.

At the name Malak, Ralek's antennae perked up. Malak himself stepped out of the Voot runner, dressed in his blue medic robes. At the sight of his old friend, Ralek forgot all suspicions.

"Malak!"

They embraced briefly and Malak flicked a finger at Ralek's broken antenna.

"Still moping over that old wound?" he teased.

"You wish! It was a cheap shot, anyway! You were never a good soldier, Mal. Always the healer," Ralek teased him.

He had lost his other antennae on Meekrob when Malak had accidentaly shot it off when aiming for a building. It was an old joke and Malak brushed it off.

"So what's the plan?" Malak asked jovially. His usually sorrowful expression was replaced by one of excitement.

"Plan?" he repeated.

"Yeah! A plan! You know, when you think things through ahead of time?" said another familiar voice.

Slooshie slumbered into view from the spare room full of machine parts and old magazines.. He looked bored.

"Slooshie?! How did you-! Where! When-?" Ralek sputtered.

First Malak and now Slooshie? Were they crazy?

"Are you insane? You'll ALL be labeled defective! This makes no sense!" he cried out.

"Did you really think we were gonna let you have all the fun, harboring an alien?" Slooshie grinned. Malak laughed.

"Besides. We know we're already defective. We just stayed quiet all those years. Here we are, running from the law, and we have Rain to thank. How is she, by the way?" asked Malak.

"Not very good, I'm afraid. She looks better than when you last saw her, but ... I did something stupid. She was kidnapped and taken to the labs-,"

"-WHAT?!!,"

"-And experimented on. She has a healing probe in her skull. And smeets in her stomach," he finished.

"Whoa, whoa, wait. Smeets in her stomach? Did she eat them? OH MY IRK!! They turned her into a cannibal?" squeaked Dax.

Malak leaned down and patted the smeet's head and chuckled.

"No. She can't be a cannibal, eating smeets, she's not irken," he corrected.

"Oh."

Ralek sighed. There was no easy way to put it.

"It's how humans reproduce, Dax. She's carrying irken young like you," Ralek admitted.

Slooshie snapped out of his bored stupor enough to stutter incoherently and Malak's darker purple eyes went wide. Dax simply looked confused.

"Can we see her? There aren't any ships around- you blew off near the Jrodite system. We're almost on the edge of the universe now," said Slooshie.

"The Jrodite system? Is that near Earth?" asked a voice from behind them all.

They all turned.

"Rain!" said Malak, surprised.

She would have looked alright if it weren't for the probe in her skull and the lack of hair where it had been shaved off. Otherwise, there wasn't much wrong with her.

Malak gave her a gentle hug and Slooshie smiled and waved. He reached into his PAK and brought out- a tray of nachos covered in cheese sauce.

Rain grinned and began to laugh. The sound of it made all of his tension vanish. He almost forgot there were ships after him.

"So... you were talking about a plan?" she said.

Ralek looked from Dax, to Malak, to Slooshie who had somehow managed to hide on board since he had no idea how long, to the alien who was somehow not so alien anymore, then back to Dax. The little smeet was eager to do anything to help... Ralek smiled. It reminded him of himself.

"Weeell?" said Slooshie tauntingly.

Ralek laughed and began punching coordinates into the on board computer. They were to go away from the Jrodite system and closer to the edges of the known universe. To where Rain claimed Earth was located, a universe she called "the Milky Way". The picture on the computer showed it to be a spiral shaped galaxy.

"To Earth?" asked Rain.

"Earth," agreed Ralek.

"YAAAAY!!" she cheered, all angriness and injury forgotten.

"Um... what's Earth like?" asked Malak pointedly.

Rain grinned and opened Ralek's PAK. Ralek jumped, for the move was unexpected, but he relaxed when he felt her reach for the one thing there that wouldn't hurt anyone. Paper.

She reached in for something to write with but Ralek activated his PAK legs and handed her a pen before she could get her hand in. She started a bit, but took the pena nd began scribbling furiously on the paper. She showed her drawing to Malak, and the moment he saw it, his eyes lit up and his normally-ugly face split into a delighted grin that turned him almost cute.

"These.... flowers... actually FLOWERS... and the trees... so... oh, Irk, I must go with you now," he sputtered excitedly. Ralek laughed. He _knew_ Malak would be interested in Earth, with his plant fixation.

Suddenly they were all thrown forward. Little Dax, who was the lightest of them all, flew into the wall but the rest of them landed on top of Slooshie. Needless to say, it was a soft landing.

Someone was shooting at them!

"Rain? Slooshie? Everyone okay?!" Malak called out frantically. They all got to their hands and knees in time to see two things; one, there was a fleet of ships, all surrounding the Massive, and two...

Dax wasn't moving.

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FINALLY updated this!! I hope you enjoy it, warning for next chapter, character death!!

PLEASE REVIEW!


	23. Safely banished

Since you've all waited quite long enough, I have decided, after re-reading my own story, to update this one ^_^

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"Oh, no... Dax!" cried Malak.

While the medic was preoccupied with the injured smeet in training, Ralek manned his ship's controls. This thing was an apartment ship, never even meant to even be PUSHED into hyperdrive, and yet the Massive had apparently had no trouble finding them all.... unless they had tracked them from Dax's communication with the ship...

He answered the Massive's hail to see the face of Tallest Purple, and behind him, Zim.

Munching on a donut, Purple glared at them all, Slooshie, who glared right back, Ralek, who glared as well, Malak, who was tending to the injured smeet, and the smeet himself.

"Hey! No one gave you permission to kidnap an experiment we stole from you fair and square! And also, you kidnapped a smeet! So give'em back!" Purple whined in a bossy sort of voice.

Ralek leaned in, resting his arms on the ship's commuinication panel in a defensive posture and he glared at his former Tallests.

"You listen to US for a change. You two are HORRIBLE leaders, you think NOTHING of the people you claim to lead, and me, Slooshie, Malak and the little one are taking Rain and going someplace where YOU and your Armada can't hurt us anymore. DO you understand??" he lectured them.

Tallest Red shoved Purple aside, and unlike Purple, he actually resembled a leader. He was slightly smarter, at any rate.

"We do understand. Fine. From now on, consider yourselves ALL defective and if any of you comes within... um... 100 feet of Irk, you'll be attacked on sight. But give the smeet back!" he demanded.

Ralek suppressed a triumphant smile. They were branded as defective and banished from the home planet forever now, but on the plus side... it meant no more armada, no more tallests, no more stupid rules and regulations, no PAK suppressants... and mo more watching for oncoming ships.

Ralek turned to Rain, who was helping little Dax to stand, but Da was way out of it. When he was thrown, he hit the far wall and broke off a lever for the lighting in the room they were in; pieces of it were stuck in his chest and side and his PAK was flashing red... It was no use... the little smeet, so intent on helping and learning new things, would almost certainly die.

Rain pulled out pieces of the alloy metal and Malak immediately went to work doing what he did best; healing. Dax's PAK stopped flashing, at any rate, so that was a good sign.

"Let him go back with the Massive, Mal. Tallest Red is right, he's too young right now and the planet can help him better than we can," Ralek gave in. On the communications screen, both tallests looked triumphant. Witout noticing how close the ship had been getting, there was a huge BUMPas the massive docked onto Ralek's much-smaller apartment ship.

Tallest Red had glided on board, scooped up the injured smeet, laughed at them all and zoomed away on the massive before anyone could really do anything. They were left hovering in dead space, alone. All communication with the Tallests was severed.

Rain looked confused for a moment.

"What,... just happened?" she asked.

Ralek smiled gently and, knowing they were finally safe and not caring who was watching, he took her hands and pulled her into one of her human hugs, holding her as tight as he dared with the smeets inside her. It wasn't somethign a typical Irken would have done, but then, he wasn't typical. With everything but the most basic of life support in his PAK shut off, he was free to do as he pleased.

Slooshie made some sort of "aww" noise, but Malak, sensing the nature of the situation, shushed him and pulled him (with difficulty) from the room.

Ralek took no notice. He looked her over up close for a few moments, and ignoring the fact that she was human and half bald and had a head probe, he kissed her for the second time, but this kiss was simply a grateful-to-be-alive one.

She pulled away and managed a smile.

"I... I think I'm i-" she began, but Ralek shushed her with a smile.

"I know. I... I love you, too... I guess I was always in love with you, but... just never wanted to admit it because... well, "he tailed off and picked up the book she had been reading before, about the alien who fell in love with the irken or something or other.

Rain simply smiled.

As the ship flew on towards Earth, Rain began clutching her belly.

"Something wrong?" he asked, worried.

She shook her head and frowned slightly.

"What about... the smeet? What's going to happen-?" she asked.

Ralek sighed and called Malak in.

He explained about Irkens giving birth to litters before cloning was introduced and produced a small viewscreen from his medic PAK. He took a picture of her insides and showed a freeze frame to her, revealing her own skeleton... and those of five very very tiny little ones floating in the black cavity where her organs would be. Her green eyes went wide.

"Five...? I think I need to sit..." and sit she did.

The ship flew on.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

MWAHAHAHA Next chapter they land on earth! 


	24. Home again

Hey all, Sao here... and wow. I'm... sorry I haven't upated anything in forever... it's been over two years I think? Well, from all the begging and the occasional review I still get... and at the urging of one fan, it shall continue... I've been reading over all the stuff that needs continuation and... wow. Yeah, a lot of stuff probably won't be continued... it's just too unsalvageable. No plot, no flow and continuity what's that... but I'll try my best to save this one.

The trip back to Earth, from just outside Irk's space and the Jrodite system took a bit longer than 6 months... Ralek felt he had already pushed it more than enough in running from the Empire in the first place. It was having some engine problems, so for the first week on the run, he had it free-floating through dead space on its own inertia, while he fixed the damn thing. Malak and Slooshie ended up sharing a room, although the former complained often about the snoring of the latter. Ralek only had two rooms on board... and of course Rain ended up sleeping with him in his room.

The first couple of days were strange for him, because he wasn't used to sleeping with another person by his side... but then he learned to cuddle, and things were much smoother.

By month six of the trip to her home planet, there arose more problems. Rain's belly by now had ballooned in size, from flat and smooth, to looking like she was smuggling two or three watermelons under her shirt... which no longer fit her. She couldn't even walk anymore... and this prompted Malak to get her on a stretcher in his tiny little med bay to see what the heck was wrong. Rain was panicked, but a simple dose of anisthetic made her worries disappear.

"So what's wrong?"

Malak stood there near the table Rain lay on, on her side, as she couldn't lie on her back anymore. Her hair had grown in, but it had all been chopped to her shoulders. There was a foam pillow holding her belly up. To Ralek, who had seen pictures of pregnant women since leaving Irk, and had thought them beautiful, thought this looked... wrong somehow. She was TOO big... even FOR five smeets. Malak's expression didn't help any.

"Decomposition... some of the smeets didn't make it, and the rot has been swelling her abdomen and things for weeks now... We should have caught this sooner, now I have to cut her open," he complained. He frowned. He didn't like aggressive surgery.

Ralek folded his arms. Being together this long, he had cared for her with the smeets implanted there until now, even though they weren't his and she had had no say in the matter. But news that some or even all of them were dead, and poisoning her?

"What do you want me to do?"

Malak thought for a moment. He'd never had to do this before, but he'd read about it. "Help me roll her onto her back... I'm going to put her under a bit deeper. She needs to be cut open".

Ralek nodded and helped heave her onto her back, and her belly wiggled in a way that didn't look normal. Malak even looked worried. Weren't human prengancies supposed to be... firm?

He stood back and watched as Malak sedated her further and prodded her for a moment, before cutting her open, a small, two inch slit near her lower belly. Immediately her gut seemed to almost deflate, and Malak had to step back and retch into a nearby sink. Even Ralek caught it. Gah! The smell! Her dead smeets had begun to rot already and the buildup of gas was why she looked so hideously grotesque. Now she seemed normal sized. Malak put a mask on his face now and carefully approached her again. He had to reach his hand in and feel for the dead ones... a small video screen showed him what he was doing. Four of them... all but one little one was dead. His face fell a little. They were so small and still... one by one he carefully pulled them out, and sucked out the rot from them, so the last little one could grow healthy. The little ones got set into a tray and covered with a piece of surgical drape.

Ralek approached her again and Malak was in the process of sealing her wound up, much better than a human c-section. He looked ragged. "Four dead out of five... and the last looks like a little girl," he sighed. It was true... the little thing had pale white-green skin, dusky. But it was sleeping inside its mother for the moment now. A mother who would be very glad to have her feet back.

Ralek sat and stroked her hair off of her brow and tried to sooth her. She was waking up, or starting to.

"Rain? Rain, honey... wake up ," he whispered. He'd only just discovered pet names a few months ago, and he found he rather liked the simpler more endearing ones, even if it did make him sound old.

Rain stirred and opened her green eyes. She looked at him and frowned. "I feel... lighter".

Ralek explained what Malak had done, and to his surprise she got a look of relief on her face! "Thank god, I couldn't see myself taking care of five... so I just have one," she remarked. Ralek supposed the reason she was surprisingly unattached to these smeets was because they had been implanted by force, not choice. He bet even if the last didn't make it, she wouldn't be too sad.

She sat up finally and looked to him. "Oof... much better.. and I don't feel queasy either..." she tried to smile at him. He put a hand to what remained of her belly and pressed his forehead to hers. "Well we're almost to Earth, according to the ship...".

She licked her lips and smiled. "Hmmm... it'll be nice to be back at my old house again... you're all welcome to stay, if you want..." she offered. "My house has four bedrooms".

Ralek ran his hands from her belly to her waist and nuzzled her. "Hmmm... so long as I get to stay with you in yours," he teased.

She giggled. "Of course".

The ship drifted ever closer to the beautiful blue marble that was her home planet. The stars reflected off of its hull as it decendded into the atmosphere... it was cloaked, of course, and programmed to land in her own backyard. She stepped out and breathed deep. Sweet, overgrown honeysuckle, that always seemed to grow up the side of the back shed... the hazy aroma of orange trees blossoming, where she had it planted in the front yard.

Ralek stepped out and breathed in as well, but it was Malak who was in seventh heaven. The vines! The grass! The trees! Even the dead cactus plant was fascinating! So much to learn, so much to catalogue... where to start?

Slooshie for his part didn't much care for the planets... but he did smell food... mmm.

Rain could tell her new friends would find both careers and hobbies pretty fast... and they did.

Slooshie eventually developed the disguise, of a fat human man with dark hair and a pudgy face and eventually became the CEO of McDonalds on the east coast and Malak developed a disguise so he could pursue botany.

Rain gave birth, finally, to the little Irken girl... she named her Abby. The little thing was the cutest thing, with green eyes and curly little antennae, and she adored Ralek... they decided eventually to adopt her right and become a family.

No one heard from the Empire again.


End file.
